"" high-lift enhancements for surface-vorticity aerodynamic analysis NASA is investigating methods for rapid low-speed aerodynamic analysis of aircraft high-lift configurations for use in conceptual…

This federal contract award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center to the National Institute of Aerospace Associates (NIA) aims to investigate and enhance unstructured surface-vorticity-based aerodynamic solvers for rapid low-speed analysis of aircraft high-lift configurations. The $155,593.49 cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order, awarded on September 28, 2015, has the following key objectives: (1) develop a pressure-difference rule suitable for surface vorticity distributions, (2) investigate best practices for modeling high-lift geometries in OpenVSP and converting the grids for the FlightStream solver, and (3) modify the FlightStream solver accordingly. The prime contractor, NIA, has subcontracted a portion of the work to Research In Flight LLC, a for-profit aerospace engineering company that specializes in vorticity-based aerodynamic analysis tools. This task order is part of NASA's broader efforts to improve computational fluid dynamics capabilities for conceptual aircraft design studies.

"" high-lift enhancements for surface-vorticity aerodynamic analysis NASA is investigating methods for rapid low-speed aerodynamic analysis of aircraft high-lift configurations for use in conceptual aircraft design studies. These methods must fit within the existing systems analysis framework, which uses vehicle sketch pad (OPENVSP) for geometry modeling. Unstructured surface-vorticity-based aerodynamic solvers, such as research in flights flightstream solver, have been identified as an attractive option for low-speed analysis of high-lift configurations because they can be expected to be substantially more robust and stable compared to pressure-based potential-flow solvers and less sensitive to surface perturbations; and because they allow the use of coarser meshes with an acceptable level of fidelity. There are currently several shortcomings which hinder the use of unstructured surface-vorticity solvers. The objectives/scope of this task order are as follows: (1) to investigate a formulation of the valarezo-chin pressure-difference rule suitable for use with surface vorticity distributions, rather than pressure distributions, demonstrate its use in the flightstream unstructured surface-vorticity aerodynamic solver, and validate the predicted maximum lift against experimental data; (2) to investigate best practices for modeling high-lift geometries in OPENVSP and for converting the exported grids to improve automation and solution convergence in the flightstream solver. (3) modify the flightstream solver to incorporate enhancements specified under this task order.