Transport Aircraft Three-Dimensional High-Lift Wing Numerical Transition Prediction

Abstract

Laminar-turbulent transition appears in high-lift configurations through instabilities, attachment-line contamination, or separation. Its prediction may improve the estimation of maximum lift and allows the extrapolation from wind-tunnel measurements to flight conditions. This prediction is being inserted within Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes codes to become part of standard design procedures. This requires fast and reliable transition-prediction tools, a very difficult issue in itself. This paper presents recent ONERA progress based on three-dimensional coupling between Navier-Stokes and boundary-layer codes and internal transition prediction within the elsA Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes software and their application to a typical transport aircraft high-lift wing used as a common test case in the European projects EUROLIFT 1 and 2. In elsA, emphasis is placed on transition prediction in three-dimensional flows, and issues of contamination and relaminarization are discussed but are left for future tests.