Airfoil design method using the Navier-Stokes equations

TLDR

An iterative residual‑correction inverse design procedure integrated into a 2‑D Navier‑Stokes analysis automatically generates airfoil sections with specified surface pressure distributions. The method yields useful airfoil configurations efficiently, demonstrating reasonable computational resource usage.

Abstract

An airfoil design procedure is described that was incorporated into an existing 2-D Navier-Stokes airfoil analysis method. The resulting design method, an iterative procedure based on a residual-correction algorithm, permits the automated design of airfoil sections with prescribed surface pressure distributions. The inverse design method and the technique used to specify target pressure distributions are described. It presents several example problems to demonstrate application of the design procedure. It shows that this inverse design method develops useful airfoil configurations with a reasonable expenditure of computer resources.