A parametric grid generation tool for the aerodynamic evaluation of hypersonic vehicles

Abstract

The structured grid is made up of 265 blocks and is generated using e3prep, the preprocessor and grid generation tool for The University of Queensland's compressible CFD code, Eilmer. Significant modification of vehicle geometry is possible while retaining acceptable grid quality. However, poor quality issues present themselves at swept geometry.In addition to a demonstration of the parametric nature of the tool, results of a proof of concept simulation of the complete vehicle are given. A short forebody study detailing the analysis of a widened, cambered forebody with a flattened windward side was completed as further demonstration. The modified geometry was found to improve the inlet onset flow iii and increase precompression. These results are presented without formal verification and validation and hence considered provisional.Recommendations are made on the continued development of the tool. These primarily address the quality issues preventing full functionality of the tool and include utilising sections of unstructured cells to form a patched grid and combining the current work with GridPro for the generation of a highly smoothed grid. The use of OpenFOAM for subsonic simulation is also discussed along with increased parallelisation of the simulations to decrease runtime.