USM3D Simulations for the Third AIAA Sonic Boom Prediction Workshop

Abstract

The NASA USM3D flow solver was used to compute test cases for the Third AIAA Sonic Boom Prediction Workshop (SBPW3). The test cases included a near-field biconvex shock–plume interaction wind tunnel model and the C608 low boom flight demonstrator. Numerical simulations were conducted on the mixed-element and tetrahedral grids provided by the workshop committee, as well as a family of grids generated by an in-house approach known as BoomGrid. The near-field pressure signatures were extracted and propagated to the ground, and the perceived loudness levels on the ground were computed. The USM3D near-field pressure signatures, corresponding ground signatures, and loudness levels on the ground were compared with that of mean values from other workshop participants. The effect of three flux-limiters on the accuracy of near-field pressure signature prediction was investigated and results were compared with that of mean values from other workshop participants. The effect of using wall-function models for predicting near-field pressure signatures was also evaluated. Results showed that the overpressure signatures extracted from the wall-modeled simulations and the wall-resolved simulations are in good agreement. The use of wall functions (wall-modeled simulations) allowed for approximately 23% savings in the time to solution and yielded comparable perceived loudness levels on the ground to the wall-resolved Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations.