Aerospace Dynamics

When we think of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) in the aerospace and aeronautical industries, we often limit our thinking to the aerodynamic analysis of wing/tail structure or fuselages. But CFD analysis applies to almost all of the critical components and systems of an aircraft. For example, excessive heat in the electronic components can lead to failure and reliability issues. Fuel delivery and engine cooling systems must be optimized. Cabin air conditioning/heating systems need to be analyzed. And the industry cannot afford to either over-conservatively design these systems (excessive cost) or prove efficiency/reliability by building multiple physical prototypes, testing in labs, and then re-designing, which is a long and expensive process. Because of these issues, CFD comes into play early and throughout the design process for multiple components and systems in the aircraft. With these new CFD tools, a design engineer with standard training and working in any size company can use his or her existing knowledge to successfully perform analyses, all within the familiar MCAD environment of choice. Certainly, there will always be a few very demanding applications where more advanced CFD knowledge is needed to fine-tune the meshing and solver settings to converge to a solution. However, taking CFD out of the exclusive domain of specialists and bringing it into the mainstream enables design engineers with little specific training in CFD to analyze problems in roughly 80 to 90% of the time compared to using traditional tools. This offers designers a fundamental breakthrough in design efficiency. [Isaac J, Graham S (2013) CFD in the Aerospace and Aeronautics Industries].

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Last date updated on April, 2024