Enhancement on parallel unstructured overset grid method for complex aerospace engineering applications

In the present study,an efficient overset grid method by means of parallel implicit hole-cutting is proposed for the sake of simulating unsteady flows in aerospace engineering involving multiple bodies in relative movement.In view of the degraded computational efficiency and robustness for conventional overset grid assembly,several innovative techniques are developed within the overset grid assembly process,viz.,a bookkeeping alternative digital tree method to speed up the donor-cell searching,a fast parallel advancing front algorithm to accelerate the wall-distance calculation and a message-passing strategy with efficient information communication and lower storage expenditure within distributed computational architecture.The contribution of the developed techniques is evidenced by comparison with the existing alternative ways in terms of computing efficiency.Subsequently,the overset grid method is embedded into an inhouse programed URANS solver to examine its capability in predicting the flow field of complex applications such as helicopter,store separation and component deploying.Results show that the developed overset grid methodology is,in practice,able to resolve the aerodynamic characteristics of complex aerospace engineering with a high-fidelity flow topology and accuracy.

Aerodynamic performance enhancement of co-flow jet airfoil with simple high-lift device

The present study performed a numerical investigation to explore the performance enhancement of a co-flow jet(CFJ)airfoil with simple high-lift device configuration,with a specific goal to examine the feasibility and capability of the proposed configuration for low-speed take-off and landing.Computations have been accomplished by an in-house-programmed Reynoldsaveraged Navier-Stokes solver enclosed by k-ωshear stress transport turbulence model.Three crucial geometric parameters,viz.,injection slot location,suction slot location and its angle were selected for the sake of revealing their effects on aerodynamic lift,drag,power consumption and equivalent lift-to-drag ratio.Results show that using simple high-lift devices on CFJ airfoil can significantly augment the aerodynamic associated lift and efficiency which evidences the feasibility of CFJ for short take-off and landing with small angle of attack.The injection and suction slot locations are more influential with respect to the aerodynamic performance of CFJ airfoil compared with the suction slot angle.The injection location is preferable to be located in the downstream of the pressure suction peak on leading edge to reduce the power expenditure of the pumping system for a relative higher equivalent lift-to-drag ratio.Another concluded criterion is that the suction slot should be oriented on the trailing edge flap for achieving more aerodynamic gain,meanwhile,carefully selecting this location is crucial in determining the aerodynamic enhancement of CFJ airfoil with deflected flaps.

Flight trajectory optimization of sun-tracking solar aircraft under the constraint of mission region

The optimal yawing angle of sun-tracking solar aircraft is tightly related to the solar azimuth angle,which results in a large arc flight path to dynamically track the sun position.However,the limited detection range of payload usually requires solar aircraft to loiter over areas of interest for persistent surveillance missions.The large arc sun-tracking flight may cause the target area on the ground to be outside the maximum coverage area of payload.The present study therefore develops an optimal flight control approach for planning the flight path of sun-tracking solar aircraft within a mission region.The proposed method enables sun-tracking solar aircraft to maintain the optimal yawing angle most of the time during daylight flight,except when the aircraft reverses its direction by turning flight.For a circular region with a mission radius of 50km,the optimal flight trajectory and controls of an example K-shaped sun-tracking solar aircraft are investigated theoretically.Results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach to optimize the flight path of the sun-tracking aircraft under the given circular region while maximizing the battery input power.Furthermore,the effects of varying the mission radius on energy performance are explored numerically.It has been proved that both net energy and energy balance remain nearly constant as the radius constraint varies,which enables the solar aircraft to achieve perpetual flight at almost the same latitude as the large arc flight.The method and results presented in this paper can provide reference for the persistent operation of sun-tracking solar aircraft within specific mission areas.

A fast and automatic full-potential finite volume solver on Cartesian grids for unconventional configurations

To meet the requirements of fast and automatic computation of subsonic and transonic aerodynamics in aircraft conceptual design,a novel finite volume solver for full potential flows on adaptive Cartesian grids is developed in this paper.Cartesian grids with geometric adaptation are firstly generated automatically with boundary cells processed by cell-cutting and cell-merging algorithms.The nonlinear full potential equation is discretized by a finite volume scheme on these Cartesian grids and iteratively solved in an implicit fashion with a generalized minimum residual（GMRES） algorithm.During computation,solution-based mesh adaptation is also applied so as to capture flow features more accurately.An improved ghost-cell method is proposed to implement the non-penetration wall boundary condition where the velocity-potential of a ghost cell is modified by an analytic method instead.According to the characteristics of the Cartesian grids,the Kutta condition is applied by specially computing the gradients on Kutta-faces without directly assigning the potential jump to cells adjacent wake faces,which can significantly improve the solution converging speed.The feasibility and accuracy of the proposed method are validated by several typical cases of sub/transonic flows around an ONERA M6 wing,a DLR-F4 wing-body,and an unconventional figuration of a blended wing body（BWB）.The validation cases demonstrate a fast convergence with fully automatic grid treatment and computation,and the results suggest its capacity in application for aircraft conceptual design.

Aerodynamic characteristics of co-flow jet wing with simple high-lift devices

Numerical investigations are conducted to explore the aerodynamic characteristics of three-dimensional Co-Flow Jet(CFJ) wing with simple high-lift devices during low-speed takeoff and landing. Effects of three crucial parameters of CFJ wing, i.e., angle of attack, jet momentum and swept angle, are comprehensively examined. Additionally, the aerodynamic characteristics of two CFJ configurations, i.e., using open and discrete slots for injection, are compared. The results show that applying CFJ technique to a wing with simple high-lift device is able to generate more lift,reduce drag and enlarge stall margin with lower energy expenditure due to the super-circulation effect. Increasing the jet intensity can reduce the drag significantly, which is mainly contributed by the reaction jet force. The Oswald efficiency factor is, in some circumstances, larger than one,which indicates the potential of CFJ in reducing induced drag. Compared with clean wing configuration, using CFJ technique allows the aerodynamic force variation less sensitive to the swept angle, and such phenomenon is better observed for small swept angle region. Eventually, it is interesting to know that the discrete slotted CFJ configuration demonstrates a promising enhancement in aerodynamic performance in terms of high lift, low drag and efficiency.