Summary of the 4th High-Lift Prediction Workshop Hybrid RANS/LES Technology Focus Group

Abstract

This paper summarizes the collective efforts of multiple teams that contributed to the hybrid RANS/LES technical focus group for the 4th AIAA CFD High Lift Prediction Workshop (HLPW-4), which took place on January 7, 2022, in San Diego, California. The overall conclusion is that turbulence-resolving methods such as hybrid RANS/LES (HRLES) do offer improved predictions for these high-lift geometries, with respect to the underlying RANS models, but there are nuances, and some unresolved issues remain that should be the focus of future work. In particular, while HRLES methods appear to show clearly improved predictions at higher angles of attack, there is some tendency for HRLES methods to return slightly worse moment predictions at lower angles of attack, suggesting that prediction of the shallow separation from the flaps might need further research. Computing cost also remains a significant issue, with HRLES methods requiring roughly nine times more high-performance computing central processing unit core hours than steady-state RANS methods, indicating that future algorithmic and computational optimization could be beneficial. Finally, there are strong indications that modeling the wind tunnel has a positive impact on correlation with experimental measurements, suggesting that future work might be better focused on in-tunnel simulations.