Unsteady nonlinear panel method with mixed boundary conditions

Abstract

A new panel method had been developed to account for unsteady nonlinear subsonic flow. Two boundary conditions were used to solve the potential flow about complex configurations of airplanes. Dirichlet boundary condition and Neumann formulation are frequently applied to the configurations that have thick and thin surfaces respectively. Mixed boundary conditions were used in the present work to simulate the connection between thick fuselage and thin wing surfaces. The matrix of linear equations was solved every time step in a marching technique with Kelvin's theorem for the unsteady wake modeling. To make the method closer to the experimental data, a Nonlinear stripe theory which is based on a two-dimensional viscous-inviscid interaction method for each station along the wing spanwise direction and Prandtle-Glauert rule for compressibility effect were used to enhance the potential results of the method. The fast turnaround time and the ability to model arbitrary geometries is the goal of the present work. Different airplanes configurations were simulated (DLR-F4, light jet, cargo and four engine commercial airplanes). The results of pressure and forces coefficients were compared with the DLR-F4 airplane. The comparisons showed a satisfying agreement with the experimental data. The method is simple and fast as compared with other singularity methods, which may be dependent as a preliminary method to design aircrafts.