PROCESSES FOR AEROELASTIC SIMULATION AND OPTIMISATION

Linear aerodynamic methods are used in many industrial application of aeroelasticity. These methods are inferior in scope to those available from Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD. In the case of transonic and high angle of attack conditions, the simplifying linearity assumptions break down and critical phenomena may no be captured. The work presented in this paper shows the status of efforts to close the fidelity gap between aerodynamics and aeroelasticity by application of state-of-the-art disciplinary and interdisciplinary techniques, specifically parallel Euler and Navier-Stokes CFD solvers, mesh deformation algorithms, generic fluid-structure interfaces, and high-performance computing. Methods and tools are described, with a special emphasis on implementation of loose fluid- structure coupling of legacy software on a heterogeneous cluster of host computers. The architecture of a system for controlling both sequential or parallel, static and dynamic aeroelastic processes is sketched. Static and dynamic aeroelastic simulation results are presented for the X-31A research aircraft wing. The use of such simulations in optimisations with structural, aerodynamic, and aeroelastic objectives and/or constraints is discussed.