Far-field drag decomposition using hybrid formulas and vorticity based area sensors

Abstract

Numerical simulation of flow-field has become an indispensable tool for aerodynamic design. Usually, wall surface integration is a tool used to calculate values of pressure drag and skin friction drag, but the aerodynamic mechanism of drag production is still confusing. In present work, in order to decompose the total drag into viscous drag, wave drag, induced drag, and spurious drag, a far-field drag decomposition (FDD) method is developed. This method depends on axial velocity defect and area sensor functions. The present work proposes three hybrid formulas for velocity defect to tackle the negative square root issue by analyzing the existing axial velocity defect formulas. For dealing with the issue of detection failure for near-wall cells, a novel vorticity based viscous area sensor function is proposed. The new area sensor function is also independent of the turbulence model, which ensures easy application to general simulation methods for flow-field. Three tests cases are there to validate the proposed FDD method. The three dimensional transonic CRM test case shows that the present improvement is crucial for accurate drag decomposition. Excellent agreement between total decomposed drags and results from the near-field method or experimental data further confirms the correctness.