Development of a multi-field computational tool for high-fidelity static aeroelastic simulations

Abstract

A new method for high-fidelity aeroelastic static analysis of composite laminated wings is proposed. The structural analysis and the fluid-dynamic analysis are coupled in a heterogeneous staggered process. The Finite Element Method (FEM), the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF) and Equivalent Plate Modelling (EPM) are combined to model complex three-dimensional geometries in a bi-dimensional framework; Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is employed to solve the Navier-Stokes equations and different turbulence models (i.e. Spalart-Allmaras) through SU2, an open-source software that implements C++ routines for 3D fluid-dynamics analysis. The Moving Least Square patch technique is adopted to manage the fluid-structure interaction. The use of an equivalent plate model, as opposite to 1D models often employed in the literature, shows competitive performances in terms of number of degrees of freedom. High-fidelity aerodynamics allows studying non-linear phenomena associated to irregularities of the fluidstructure interaction, showing a level of accuracy that low-fidelity methods such as Vortex Lattice Method (VLM) and Doublet Lattice Method (DLM) are unable to provide. Such advantages are balanced by the need to elaborate a staggered iterative method for the resolution of static aeroelastic problems, which leads to higher computational costs.