Modern combat aircraft’s highly or moderately swept wings, being designed for supersonic cruise, also have to allow for high maneuverability at trans- and subsonic speeds. This calls for the exploitation of separated flows such as vortices, vortex systems, and their combination with shock systems to the better of the aerodynamic characteristics. In-depth understanding of these flows is vital for the successful design. Here, sub- and transonic free-flight high-angle-of-attack flow simulation results are shown in detail for the F-16XL combat aircraft. Unstructured meshes were adapted manually according to the expected flowfields, covering the complete aircraft without any geometric simplification for the free-flight conditions. The scope of this paper probes for the quality and quantity of high-resolution numerical simulations possible with the current computer capacity at free-flight Reynolds numbers. The DLR Tau code was used to solve the Navier–Stokes equations. The F-16XL (unsteady) Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations are performed with the scale-adaptive/detached-eddy simulation turbulence model. Aerodynamic high-angle-of-attack flow features are discussed together with capabilities of the current modeling capabilities and the need for better understanding of vortex system and shock–vortex interference effects.
High-Angle-of-Attack F-16XL Flight Simulations at Sub- and Transonic Speeds
Journal of aircraft ; 54 , 6
2017
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Englisch
Sub- and Transonic Vortex Breakdown Flight Condition Simulations of the F-16XL Aircraft
Online Contents | 2017
|British Library Conference Proceedings | 2015
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