A CFD and CSD interaction algorithm for large and complex configurations

Abstract

A numerical scheme, based on the formulations of the Boundary Element Methods (BEM) for linear elasticity, has been developed to relate the displacements at the boundary of a structure to the prescribed displacements at its interior. The algorithm can be applied in aeroelastic study of flexible structures, where computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural dynamics (CSD) are involved, to map the force and displacement between the CFD and CSD solvers. The scheme is designed to handle large and complex structures such as an aircraft, and to be in line with the component-based approach in defining such objects. This is facilitated with the use of a multi-region approach, in which, the different regions are considered as separate BEM models during the phase of building the system matrices, handling only one region at a time. With the regional system matrices generated, we can assemble them into a single global matrix for the whole structure. The paper presents the underlying principles and development of the numerical scheme. © 2002 by the author(s).