Earlier this year, the Zenotech team shared results achieved through our zCFD tool at two events – the NASA High Lift workshop and, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, at the Scitech conference.
Read on to discover more about the results from these events…
NASA Hi-Lift Workshop
Zenotech’s Oliver Darbyshire contributed data from runs with zCFD on the set of test cases for the AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) CFD High Lift Prediction Workshop in January. The workshop was split into “technology focus groups”, with Zenotech in the “fixed grid RANS” group.
What were the results?
Our tool, zCFD performed well in the code verification test and the sa-neg turbulence model implementation is considered validated along with the codes from NASA and others. Our results in the other test cases were comparable to the other RANS results.
The results showed a relatively large spread of predictions from the steady-RANS models (suggesting they may not be the best choice for high lift configurations) with those from the Hybrid-RANS-LES and Wall Modelled LES groups showing more promising results. These are getting closer to the results from wind tunnel measurements, especially in the separated areas seen at higher flap configuration settings.
CFD predictions of aircraft in high lift configurations are difficult and current best practice, steady RANS simulation, for an aircraft in flight configuration is not likely to be applicable. The next step is for us to begin assessing Hybrid-RANS-LES models for these kinds of flows.
SciTech conference
Zenotech was also involved at another AIAA event, the Scitech Forum from 3 to 7 January 2022 in San Diego and online. The world’s largest event for aerospace research, development, and technology brings together thought leaders to discuss a range of topics from the highly theoretical to the applied with a focus on sustainability.
Zentoech’s Oliver Darbyshire, Denis Murataj (GPU Software Developer) and Constantinos Vagianos, (Software Developer) attended the conference and contributed data from zCFD to the High Lift Workshop.
With the University of Bristol, Zenotech’s zCFD tool featured in two papers:
– GPU-accelerated aerodynamic shape optimisation of IEA 15MW turbine blade, presented by Tom Wainwright, University of Bristol.
– An Initial Study of Multimodality in Wind Farm Layout Optimization Problems (from a University of Bristol Masters’ PhD thesis by Ben Allen with significant contribution by final year student, Lewis Cameron).
These papers were all well-received, setting out the research target of performing multi-turbine optimisations under unsteady flow conditions. You can read more about this research here.
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