CSAR Seminar

SPEAKER: Manuel N. D. Barcelos Jr., University of Colorado at Boulder

TITLE: Aeroelastic Optimization Methodology for Viscous and Turbulent Flows

DATE: Tuesday, April 24, 2007
TIME: 10:00 A.M.
PLACE: 2240 DCL
1304 W. Springfield Ave., Urbana, IL

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the development of faster computers and parallel processing allowed the application of high-fidelity analysis methods to the aeroelastic design of aircraft. However, these methods are restricted to the final design verification, mainly due to the computational cost involved in iterative design processes. Therefore, this work is concerned with the creation of a robust and efficient aeroelastic optimization methodology for inviscid, viscous and turbulent flows by using high-fidelity analysis and sensitivity analysis techniques. Most of the research in aeroelastic optimization, for practical reasons, treats the aeroelastic system as a quasi-static inviscid problem. In this work, as a first step toward the creation of a more complete aeroelastic optimization methodology for realistic problems, an analytical sensitivity computation technique was developed and tested for quasi-static aeroelastic viscous and turbulent flow configurations. Viscous and turbulent effects are included by using an averaged discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations, coupled with an eddy viscosity turbulence model. For quasi-static aeroelastic problems, the traditional staggered solution strategy has unsatisfactory performance when applied to cases where there is a strong fluid-structure coupling. Consequently, this work also proposes a solution methodology for aeroelastic and sensitivity analyses of quasi-static problems based on the fixed point of an iterative nonlinear block Gauss-Seidel scheme. The methodology can also be interpreted as the solution of the Schur complement of the linearized systems of equations from aeroelastic and sensitivity analyses. The methodologies developed in this work are tested and validated by using realistic aeroelastic systems.