Shape Optimization Using the Aero-structural Coupled Adjoint Approach for Viscous Flows

Abstract

The aero-structural coupled adjoint approach here is an efficient approach to compute the gradients of the aerodynamic coefficients obtained from coupled fluid-structure simulations. These gradients can then be advantageously employed for gradient-based optimizations. In this study, the approach is extended for the first time to tackle viscous flows. After introducing the theory, the method is applied to optimize the flight shape of two realistic 3D configurations. In both applications, the coupled adjoint approach permits to decrease the drag at constant lift with limited computational effort.