Progress on the boundary element method to study the disturbance fields of bodies moving in an unbounded medium

Abstract

For studying flow problems involved with complex physics it is now common to use numerical field methods for solving Navier-Stokes or Euler equations. However, for a large class of fluid mechanics problems, which can be dealt with linearized potential equations, the boundary element method proves to be quite useful, especially for its easy application and relatively less computational effort compared to the field methods. The boundary element method has undergone some significant advancements in the last decade with respect to the study of steady and unsteady flow problems concerning wing aerodynamics in compressible medium, flow fields of propellers and rotors and acoustical disturbance propagation from moving bodies. In this paper a few recent contributions which evolved in the DLR as research projects and as doctoral and diploma thesis of the Technical University Braunschweig are concisely described.