Flight Aerodynamics

CFD modeling techniques are used to study pressure and temperature loads for different flight configurations, such as vehicle re-entry or landing approaches. 

CFD modeling techniques are used to study the highly compressible turbulent flow field around a missile in supersonic flight regime.  Critical parameters such as skin heating characteristics or shock wave interactions are directly available from the numerical simulations.

Shock Studies

Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) schemes are implemented to guarantee a sharp capture of shock waves and pressure fronts around the missile.

The pressure and mach number distribution in a 2-D transonic nozzle has been compared to experimental data. The throat Mach number at the centerline and the wall has been found to be 0.88 and 1.28, respectively as compared to 0.8 and and 1.2 for the experiments.

Reference :  Cuffel, R. F., Back, L. H., and Massier, P. F., “Transonic Flowfield in a Supersonic Nozzle With Small Throat Radius of Curvature”, AIAA Journal, Vol. 7, No.7, 1969, pp. 1364-1366.

A comparison was performed between wind tunnel data for the NACA0009 wing section geometry (published by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)) and flow field data computed by STORM.  The simulations compare well with the experimental results at various angles of attack and Reynolds numbers.