AIAA 2003-4130 Complex Configuration Meshing - An Industrial View and Approach

The integrated multi-disziplinary process of combat aircraft design, which should bring forth shapes optimized performance-, handlingand missionwise demand high quality results at minimum turnaround times. The proper evaluation of the aerodynamic shapes and their flow structure results allowes favourable blends of performance and the efficient aero-servo-elastic layout. Soaring physical and technical demands call for the close coupling of aerodynamics, flight-mechanics, flight-controls and structures. The computational demands of this complex approach is heavily dominated by the integration of quality Navier-Stokes simulations which rapidly and routinely can be performed only in a parallel approach. The efficiency of modern PC-clusters can be exploited even to allow for timedependent simulations. A corresponding simulation system architecture and software (SimServer) capable to provide the complete blend of aeroservo-elastic simulations has to comply to the corresponding distributed memory architecture. The efficient meshing of complex aircraft is a vital part in high quality numerical simulations. The generation, adaptation and modification of unstructured numerical meshes is of utmost importance to comply with a difficult geometry, non-linear flow features and changing multi-body configurations. While rigid aircraft can be handled in a process chain of loosely coupled tools, tightly coupled aero-servo-elastic simulations demand the incorporation of the mesh-generation into the simulation system run in parallel side by side with the solver in the SimServer. The efficiency of which implies a very automatic, robust and efficient reconfiguration of aircraft components (e.g. controls and stores), their local re-meshing and the meshadaptation to flow features. The unsteady integration of non-slotted controls such as manoeuvre slats has not been performed yet. The demands on mesh-generation regarding quality and performance with hindsight to an efficient simulation system environment to be used on a routine basis is discussed.