CFD Simulations of Aircraft Body with Different Angle of Attack and Velocity

Abstract

In this project we describe the complete process of modeling and simulation of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) problems that occur in engineering practice. We focus mainly on the simulation of the airflow around the aircraft. The fluid flow simulations are obtained with the CFX software package ANSYS. We use the solver based on the Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked Equations (SIMPLE). The important part is the preparation of the model with the software ANSYS. We will describe the preprocessing including the creation and modification of the surface mesh in ANSYS and the three-dimensional volume grid generation. We discuss the generation of the three-dimensional grid by the snappy Hex Mesh tool, which is included in the ANSYS package. Further, we present a way of analyzing the results and some of the outputs of the simulations and following analysis. The CFD simulations were performed on the computational model of the commercial aircraft. The computations were performed for different model settings and computational grids. It means that we considered laminar and turbulent flow and several combinations of the angle of attack and inlet velocity. This case study aims to perform a CFD analysis on an aircraft model using CFX solver. While performing the simulations, meshing techniques, pre-processing and post processing sections and evaluation of a simulation is being learnt. Coefficient of lift and drag were also recorded as a user input data. These values were also compared by running two different simulations with one change of input parameter i.e. angle of attack and inlet velocity.