ENGINEERING AND CFD
Numerical Simulation of Rotary Wing Aerodynamics, Aeroelasticity and Aeroacoustics
Principal Investigator:
Dr. Manuel Keßler
Affiliation:
Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Aerodynamik und Gasdynamik (IAG), Stuttgart, Germany
Local Project ID:
HELISIM
HPC Platform used:
Hawk/HAZELHEN of HLRS
Date published:
Abstract
The helicopters & aeroacoustics group of the Insitute of Aerdynamics and Gasdynamics at the University of Stuttgart continues to develop their well-established and validated rotorcraft simulation framework. In addition to vibration prediction, noise reduction, and maneuver flight developments, new application areas like air taxis and distributed propulsion emerge out of industrial needs and fundamental research questions.
HELISIM provides the computational resources to sustain this goal-oriented approach of answering pressing needs of industrial relevance and basic qualitative topics alike. Efficiency, performance and comfort demands on one hand and new physical phenomena on the other hand both require the continuous improvement of the best solution framework possible, for technical and scientific progress and the better of society in terms of engineering results.
Methods
The simulation of rotorcraft with their complex aerodynamics, aeromechanics and aeroacoustics is the primary competence of the helicopter and aeroacoustics group at IAG. Many PhD students continuously enhanced over the last three decades the framework, adding new functionalities and considering more and more physics, in order to represent real engineering problems and to answer hard research questions accurately and reliably at the same time.
The complexity of the aircraft necessitates a multi-physics approach, including fluid-structure coupling, flight mechanics, a plethora of flow phenomena, and, not the least, high performance computing capability. Advanced numerics implemented in massively parallel algorithms are routinely run on the HPC systems at HLRS in Stuttgart, currently Hawk, and in future Hunter and Herder.
Research topics span from fundamental investigations on helicopters, e.g. on the decay of tip vortices in the rotor wake, which is relevant for flight behaviour near ground as well as noise emissions, over novel multirotor configurations, as seen in the upcoming Urban Air Mobility sector, to transient maneuver simulations with corresponding instationary coupling and comfort issues like cabin vibrations.
Another objective of research within HELISIM is distributed propulsion, where several propellers are spread along the span of the wings on more conventional aircraft. This concept is made feasible by the availability of high performance electric motors and promises improved propulsion efficiency, which enables emission free electric drives. In order to unlock these potientials, details like the positioning of such propellers and their interactions with each other and the wing need to be resolved. At the same time, acoustic emisions are to be kept at low limits, not to spoil aerodynamic efficiency with inacceptable noise pollution. The same simulation tools shaper for helicopter usage are utilized for this new application.
The upcoming paradigm shift in computer architecture towards GPUs, as seen for Hunter, poses a grand challenge for the implementation of this complex simulation framework. In contrast to trendy machine learning applications, which often require just a switch to another pre-existing library implementation, our flow solver needs to be fully ported in all details and fully scritinized, in order to further assure its proven accuracy and reliability. Making best use of the available hardware is of paramount importance due to the high computational cost od advanced simulations. HLRS supports us in this major effort to enable us continuous simulation capability over the coming years, which is gratefully acknoledged.
The HELISIM project integrates all these high fidelity rotor simulation and research endeavours for more than two decades now. We strive hard to turn the provided computational resources into knowledge and the capability to continuously improve helicopters and similar configurations in terms of safety, efficiency, noise and performance.
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