Feasibility study of different methods for the use in aircraft conceptual design

The comparison of aerodynamic characteristics for a combat aircraft studywas addressed in this work. The thesis is a feasibility study which reviewsthe workload and output quality efficiency of different numerical and experimentalmethods often used during conceptual aircraft design.For this reason the Vortex Lattice Method (VLM), Euler or Reynolds-Averaged-Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations were compared to the moreheavier Large Eddy Simulation (LES) which also has the capability to capturealso more complex flow physics, such as those that occur, for example,at high angles of attack. To be able to crosscheck the numerical results,the same static alpha sweep tests were executed in a tunnel. Thereby itwas discovered that it was quite challenging to reach the same values in thewater tunnel as those previously calculated in computational fluid dynamics(CFD) due to different technical issues.However it could be shown that LES simulations can be today a suitabletool for conceptual aircraft design, as they offer much higher levels ofaccuracy and give the designer the possibility to check the new study at anearly stage along the border of the aircraft’s flight envelope