Mesh motion methods for numerical aerodynamic design of lift and control surfaces

In this work, moving mesh methods based on the solution of pseudo structural and fluid problems are developed. Mesh motion methods are necessary features for numerical aerodynamic design and test of lift and control surfaces of UAVs. Here a particular moving mesh method based on a pseudo Stokes problem is compared to different well known moving mesh approaches such as techniques by solving diffusion and pseudo structural problems with prescribed velocity and displacement fields, respectively. The benchmark test for this comparison is an airfoil with a fully meshed domain, including the far field and boundary layer, over which is imposed a rotation velocity boundary condition. In order to distinguish the mesh motion methods, several mesh quality criteria are employed to determine a mesh quality mapping to identify critical regions with poor mesh quality and to access the performance of each mesh motion approach. In order to illustrate the mesh motion technology, this paper also presents results of the numerical simulation of a laminar flow over a NACA 0012 airfoil by using a numerical code based on a finite element projection method augmented with mesh motion capabilities