A CFD GUIDLINE

TO SIMULATE THE FLOW AROUND AN AIRFOIL

1 Introduction
1.1 Objective . The main goal of this exercise is to give the cfd-newcomer the opportunity to simulate in an almost autonomous way the ow around an airfoil with cfd. To make so a minimum of indications will be imparted.

2 Prole data
2.1 downloading the prole coordinates . with your favourite browser go to: http://www.nasg.com/afdb/list-polar-e.phtml . check polar availability browse the list for your favourite prole e.g. Speer H105

. load prole coordinates

Search -> Airfoil -> H105 Search v speer H105(... ShowAirfoil ContourData . Save as .dat or .txt le . Prepare coordinates for Gambit open the .dat le into Excel v Delimited Start import at row 2 (where coord. begin), Next v Space delimited, Next Finish if column A is empty, remove it ll column C with 0 be sure that the trail edge point appear only one time (suppress redundant point where necessary) save as Text (Tab delimited) Yes

1.2 Procedure . look for prole coordinates and polar curve . import the prole coordinates into Gambit . draw the 2D prole in its surrounding ow, and mesh this computational domain . simulate the incompressible, 2D and turbulent airow around the airfoil with Fluent . investigate pressure and velocity elds, ow trajectories, lift, drag and moment coefcients.

2.2 Read prole coordinates into Gambit . File->Import->Vertex Data->Browse....Accept/Accept . Geom->Edge->Create Edge/NURBS
Proceed with several nurbs (6 to 8) containing a measured amount of vertex. Check that the nurbs are all healthy and connected.

3 Geometry
. Geom->Face->Form Face/Wireframe
B. Schmutz, le 9/3/06 tut PROFIL H105.fm -1

assemble all Nurbs into an airfoil-prole face

. rotate the prole to the desired angle of attack:

-3, -1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 . Create the computational domain with 2 rectangular faces

4 Mesh
. Determine the thickness of the rst cells near the prole wall. For external ow,
let:

.
and

9!L Y P " ---------- ! y + ; with 30 # y + # 500 Re L $ = 1.15 kgm-3; % = 1.73 ! 10 5 kgm-1s-1 c & = 55.56 m1s-1

velocity inlet outer box airfoil

inner box

for this exercise, a coarse value of 400 should be sufcient. Cell length should not exceed 2 to 3 times Y P . Create a boundary layer all around the prole with about 10 layers and a growth factor of about 1.1 to 1.15

pressure outlet edges to be connected

wall (symmetry)

The dimensions of the computational domain should be at least 3 airfoil lengths in front of the airfoil, and 5 lengths behind. The displacement of the airfoil (thickness) should be not greater than 1-1.5% of the total cross sectional area. (This is not applicable if the domain boundaries represent the walls of a real wind-tunnel. In this case the simulation should take into account the related wall effects). In order to control the volume mesh near the airfoil, an inner box may be helpful. This box should extend about half a airfoil length in front, and to the sides, and about an airfoil length in the wake. This inner-box is not mandatory.

proceed by faces substraction

Be sure that the two boxes remain connected. If necessary: Geometry/Edge/connect and select the 4 outer edges of the inner box together with the 4 inner edges of the outer box and connect them

. Choose the right solver (Fluent 5/6) . Create a xed size function (Tools/Size Function) attached to the inner box with
the airfoil edges as sources start size = 2 to 3 times Y P ; end size = 50 Y P , growth factor 1.1
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. Create a xed size function attached to the outer box with the inner box outer
edges as sources start size 50 Y P ; end size = 200 Y P ; growth factor 1.1 mesh successively the inner and the outer box with tri-elements visualize the mesh, check it for skewness; smooth it or move some nodes where necessary Dene the boundaries, pay attention to separate the airfoil wall from the other walls Export the 2d Mesh leave gambit to unlock licenses

exaggerate wall viscosity effects and delays boundary layer separation, but very robust in term of convergence

then

Realizable
gives better results by positive pressure gradient in the ow direction and when it is not clear where ow separation should take place.

. . . . .

to begin with

Standard Wall Functions

velocity proles from experiments will be paste onto the subboundary-layers. This allows the relative coarse mesh that we build.

. .

then

Non Equilibrium Standard Wall Functions

better by curvature or pressure gradient in the ow direction

5 Case setting in Fluent

5.1 Verifying and visualizing the mesh . Read and Check the grid 5.2 Dene the physical model
Solver

Spallart-Allmaras turbulence model has less physics inside, but is well tuned for aircraft aerodynamics thanks of years of experiments.
Energy with normal sailplane-speed is Ma < 0.3 ,so there are no noticeable compressible or heating effects to capture.

Segregated
continuity equation is rst solved for all cells, then Momentum and then turbulence. This works well for incompressible and moderate compressible ow

5.3 Operating conditions . precision will be enhance by calculating with relative pressure . there are no inuence of gravity effects in such an air ow 5.4 material properties . air is considered as incompressible: Ma < 0.3 : $ = 1.15 kgm-3 . Fluent means dynamic viscosity: % = 1.73 ! 10 5 kgm-1s-1 5.5 boundary conditions
inlet

. .

Implicit
(each equation is solved for all cells together with actual data. The implicit solver brings faster convergence)

2D; Steady
(airfoil velocity will be constant and we dont expect instabilities. Nevertheless, it could be possible that by some angle of attack, an unsteady wake appears.) Viscous

A turbulence Intensity of 0.5%, and a viscosity ratio of 5 should be representative of a wind tunnel ow, or calm atmospheric ight.
outlet

. .

k-epsilon
a robust and efcient turbulent model which gives good results in most cases where turbulence have an isotropic repartition

.
Standard

to begin with:

let have atmospheric pressure at the outlet; so type 0 Pa in the Gauge pressure eld . 2% in the Backow Turbulence-intensity-eld . 20 for viscosity ratio

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tut PROFIL H105.fm

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so if there is a backow through the outlet-edge, it will be modelled with more or less realistic values top and bottom wall Save the model case

An Area of 1 m2, a depth of 1m and a length of 1m are all coherent with our airfoil

with the very coarse mesh we made by the top and down walls, it is impossible to capture a correct boundary layer on this walls, so we have to let the uid glide on them (set shear stress to 0) or make them symmetry-plane.
airfoil prole

Under: h105_angleofattack_yourname, e.g.: h105_3_bongg1

6 Processing simulation
6.1 Calculate solution . Iterate with 1st order scheme until good tendency of convergence is shown . save case and data . Enable two monitors for lift and drag coefcients . Dene monitor points for pressure or velocity at a particular point in the wake region and enable its monitoring . switch to k ' realisable model with non equilibrium wall functions . Iterate with 1st order scheme until good tendency to convergence is shown . ask for smaller convergence criterion (e.g. 10-5 for continuity) . Iterate with 2nd order scheme. Carry on calculation until all monitors as well as drag and lift coefcient show constancy 6.2 Occurrence of transient phenomena! . The development of an transient wake is physically possible. During the steadystate solution process, time-dependence of the conguration can be detected by several criteria:
- Residuals especially for Reynolds Stresses dont come down - Monitors for Drag and Lift are oscillating around a constant value - Solution process takes a long time in terms of number of iterations - Plot of Velocity Vectors in the wake of the airfoil, shows variance during the iterative process, even if residuals are nearly constant (vectors can be displayed via the Animate Panel in Fluent 6, and one might display them every 250 iterations)

An airfoil surface is very smooth, no slip condition with a wall roughness of 0 should be used
uid

the air we dened

5.6 mathematical solver model . Solve -> Controls -> Solution

- let the standard relaxation factors for all variables - begin the solution with the most simple numeric scheme (1st. order)

5.7 Initialize the ow eld . Initialize with the inlet ow values

This will attribute to all cells of the model, the velocity, pressure and turbulence values that we dened for the inlet. Those are not the correct values, but they are much better than zero and lead to a faster convergence to the physically correct values.

5.8 Various
Monitoring convergence

Enhance the plotting of the Residuals

So we will be able to follow the convergence of the solution on the monitor References Values

. If transient wake occurs estimate its frequency as follow

St ! c & f = --------------l
(6.a)

. Report->Reference values:
compute from inlet
B. Schmutz, le 9/3/06 tut PROFIL H105.fm

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Strouhal Number St ( 0.25 characteristic length l = prole thickness, The Frequency gives the number of periodical variations per second. Each variation should be resolved by at least 30 time steps, although 50 would be better. This gives the time-step for the calculation. The correctness of the time-step is veried if the continuity residual drops about 2 orders of magnitude from the beginning of the time-step within 20 iterations. To obtain a meaningful solution for time averaging a periodical behaviour of the ow eld has to appear. Therefore at least 10 (20 would be better) periods have to be calculated. Besides the transient parameters, the model set-up is the same as for steady-state simulations.

7.4 Calculate . Drag c d , Lift c l and Moments-factors c M ; compare with wind tunnel measurements or third party simulation.
Moments are measured at a quarter length of the airfoil, so set the Moment center to x = 0.25 m and y = 0 .

. Aerodynamic forces due to pressure and wall friction

7 Post-Processing
7.1 check y +

. on the airfoil prole

7.2 Grid independence . By good cfd-practice, you should ensure that solution is grid-independent and use grid adaption to modify the grid or create additional meshes for the gridindependence study. Anyhow, to save time, we will bypass this important step! 7.3 Visualise and analyse . pressure eld . velocity eld . turbulence kinetic energy k , turbulence dissipation rates ' , vortricity ) . velocity vectors . passlines

7.5 Estimate . the boundary layer thickness and compare it with the one of the at plate

8 Transmitting your results until 25.04.2006

. Use Moodle . copy in there your following les
.jou .msh .dat .trn .cas and some nice plots your made

. Checked to see that the solution makes sense based on engineering judgment. If
ow features do not seem reasonable, you should reconsider your physical models and boundary conditions. Reconsider the choice of the boundaries location (or the domain). An inadequate choice of domain (especially the outlet boundary) can signicantly impact solution accuracy.

B. Schmutz, le 9/3/06

tut PROFIL H105.fm

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