Low-Cost CFD-Based Analysis for Surface Mesh Interrogation and Refinement

Accurate flow calculation is crucial to the development and support of air platforms, and CFD has been successful at predicting aerodynamic performance for a variety of flows. The accuracy of CFD is governed by the quality of the surface mesh, and much work has been undertaken to automatically generate surface grids from CAD. Unfortunately, quality is quantified in terms of conformance to the surface rather than relevant fluid dynamics, and users must undertake costly grid refinement studies to determine a suitable mesh for production work. Based upon the unique capabilities offered by a CFD solver developed by Continuum Dynamics, Inc., in addition to significant experience developing fast reliable design codes, panel methods and CFD solvers, this effort will develop a low cost CFD-based grid processing tool that can be used to guide the creation of suitable surface meshes. The proposed tool would be built around a low-cost CFD solver and will output guidance on local surface mesh correction and refinement based upon both surface topology and flow requirements/properties. Phase I successfully demonstrated the feasibility of such a tool on several complex geometries with an assortment of geometric deficiencies. Phase II will undertake formal development and integration.