Automated CFD Analysis for the Investigation of Flight Handling Qualities

Physics based simulation is widely seen as a way of increasing the information about aircraft designs earlier in their definition, thus helping with the avoidance of unanticipated problems as the design is refined. This paper reports on an effort to assess the automated use of computational fluid dynamics level aerodynamics for the development of tables for flight dynamics analysis at the conceptual stage. These tables are then used to calculate handling qualities measures. The methodological questions addressed are a)geometry and mesh treatment for automated analysis from a high level conceptual aircraft description and b) sampling and data fusion to allow the timely calculation of large data tables. The test case used to illustrate the approaches is based on a refined design passenger jet wind tunnel model. This model is reduced to a conceptual description, and the ability of this geometry to allow calculations relevant to the final design to be drawn is then examined. Data tables are then generated and handling qualities calculated