THE CHANGING ROLE OF COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS IN AIRCRAFT DEVELOPMENT

The application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to the design of commercial transport aircraft has revolutionized the process of aerodynamic design. Today, CFD stands alongside the wind tunnel in terms of importance. The wind tunnel and CFD each has strengths and limitations, and when used together in complementary roles they enable the achievement of aerodynamic design objectives that previously were not achievable. The role of CFD must now change to enable an even greater revolution — that of significantly reducing the aircraft development cycle. This paper describes today's role of CFD in airplane design and gives a number of specific examples that illustrate the impact of CFD. It also summarizes the limitations of CFD and describes the challenges of the future necessary to achieve significant development cycle time reductions.

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