CFD Simulations of a Propeller-Wing Interaction

In this study, 3-D turbulent flows around a propeller driven aircraft model placed in a subsonic wind tunnel were computationally simulated for qualitative investigation of near field wakes. The geometry of the model was created using commercial mesh generation software, GRIDGEN, and then simulations were performed using a commercial finite volume Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver FLUENT. Initial runs were performed to validate the boundary conditions and setup of the problem where a hybrid mesh consisting of multi-blocks was in use. Sliding mesh concept used in the computations. Laminar flow simulation have been utilized and tested besides Spalart-Allmaras and k-ω SST turbulence models. For all these simulations ∝=O and Mtip=0.126 were taken. All the simulations and post processing steps were performed on ODU high performance research cluster, Zorka, with the help of parallel processing advantages. Although velocity and vorticity fields' results generally indicate good agreement between the turbulence models, future needs for the comparison of experimental and computational results obtained by using finer mesh are highlighted.