Research in unsteady aerodynamics and computational aeroelasticity at the NASA Langley Research Center

This paper presents recent results in the unsteady aerodynamics and computational aeroelasticity research programs at the NASA Langley Research Center. These programs include development of two types of computational methods: methods that use structured computational meshes and those that use unstructured meshes. Results show that an aeroelastic analysis method that uses unsteady transonic small disturbance (TSD) potential aerodynamics and structured, Cartesian meshes is capable of accurate analysis of complex aircraft configurations. The paper describes recent enhancements to the TSD method that allow analysis of vehicles with swept, flexible vertical surfaces and flexible fuselages and presents selected results that verify the accuracy of the new capabilities. Modifications to a structured-mesh Euler/Navier-Stokes method to allow aeroelastic analysis are described, and a wing flutter analysis using the resulting method is presented. Advantages of using unstructured meshes for the analysis of complex configurations are discussed. The paper presents development of unstructured-mesh Euler/Navier-Stokes methods for unsteady aerodynamics and aeroelastic analysis. Spatial and temporal adaption methods on unstructured meshes are described, and selected results are presented.