A Generic Model for Benchmark Aerodynamic Analysis of Fifth-Generation High-Performance Aircraft

Abstract

This paper introduces a generic model for the study of aerodynamic behaviour relevant to fifth-generation high-performance aircraft. The model design is presented, outlining simplifications made to retain the key features of modern high-performance vehicles while ensuring a manufacturable geometry. Subsonic wind tunnel tests were performed with force and moment balance measurements used to develop a database of experimental validation data for the platform at a freestream velocity of 20 m/s. Numerical simulations are also presented and validated by the experiments and further employed to ensure the vortex behaviour is consistent with contemporary high-performance platforms. A sensitivity study of the computational predictions from the turbulence modelling approach is also presented. This geometry is the first in a suite of representative aircraft geometries (the Sydney Standard Aerodynamic Models), in which all geometries, computational models, and experimental data are made openly available to the research community (accessible via this link: https://zenodo.org/communities/ssam_gen5/) to serve as validation test cases and promote best practices in aerodynamic modelling.