Computational Static Aeroelastic Analyses in Transonic Flows

Transonic flows at high Reynolds numbers can lead to high dynamic pressures and, consequently, aerostructural deflections of the aircraft. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools have been widely integrated withComputational Solid Mechanics (CSM) solvers, based on finite element discretization, in order to improve predictions of the aerodynamic performance and aircraft structural loads. The main objective of the paper is to describe the methodology and the numerical effort to integrate an in-house CFD code with a CSM solver for static aeroelastic applications in a high fidelity approach. The cases used for process validation are the static aeroelastic results from the High Reynolds Aerostructural Dynamics project (HIRENASD) and NASA's Common Research Model (CRM) from the 6th AIAA CFD Drag Prediction Workshop. All fluid-structure interaction (FSI) procedures have been implemented in FORTRAN and integrated via shell script. Results demonstrating converged wing surface pressures and deflections are compared to available experimental data. For the HIRENASD model, FSI aerodynamic results indicated considerable degradation in both pitching and rolling moment curves when compared with ideal rigid CFD simulations. Moreover, NASA CRM FSI simulations are performed for two different sets of modal shapes, showing wing tip deformation sensitivity.