Incompressible Solutions About High-Lift Wing Configurations

Abstract

Accurately predicting the performance of high-lift wing configurations with Computational Fluid Dynamics is an active area of research for academia and industry alike. The compressible Navier–Stokes equations are usually used in these studies to predict the complex flow field generated by high lift wing configurations. However, since these configurations are applied in low-speed conditions where \(Mach \le 0.2\), the compressible equations can exhibit some numerical stiffness caused by the quasi-incompressible nature of air under these conditions. Instead of using preconditioned compressible equations to alleviate these numerical issues, this work proposes the use of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations to predict these flow fields. Specifically, the incompressible solutions about the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency Standard Model configuration with and without nacelles and pylons are compared with experiment at multiple angles of attack to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.