Title: Critical assessment of hybrid and zonal wall functions for missile aerodynamics simulations

Authors: D. Keith Walters; Eric L. Blades

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS 39762, USA. ' Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) SimCenter, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS 39762, USA

Abstract: A state-of-the-art wall function near-wall modelling capability was implemented into a general-purpose computational fluid dynamics solver to assess its performance in viscous missile aerodynamics simulations. Test cases included a simple two-dimensional boundary layer, a complex missile configuration with fixed control surfaces, and a spinning missile with dithering canards. Results indicate that judicious use of wall functions may provide a useful compromise between economy and accuracy for viscous missile aerodynamics simulations. However, the results do not indicate a substantial advantage to using any particular version of the wall functions, at least for the test cases addressed in this study.

Keywords: wall functions; turbulence modelling; Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes; viscous missile aerodynamics; lift; drag; simulation; computational fluid dynamics; CFD.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2011.042844

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2011 Vol.11 No.6, pp.335 - 349

Published online: 06 Oct 2011 *

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