Summary of the Fourth AIAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Drag Prediction Workshop

Abstract

Results from the Fourth AIAA Drag Prediction Workshop are summarized. The workshop focused on the prediction of both absolute and differential drag levels for wing–body and wing–body/horizontal-tail configurations of the NASA Common Research Model, which is representative of transonic transport aircraft. Numerical calculations are performed using industry-relevant test cases that include lift-specific flight conditions, trimmed drag polars, downwash variations, drag rises, and Reynolds-number effects. Drag, lift, and pitching moment predictions from numerous Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes computational fluid dynamics methods are presented. Solutions are performed on structured, unstructured, and hybrid grid systems. The structured-grid sets include point-matched multiblock meshes and overset grid systems. The unstructured and hybrid grid sets comprise tetrahedral, pyramid, prismatic, and hexahedral elements. Effort is made to provide a high-quality and parametrically consistent family of grids for each grid type about each configuration under study. The wing–body/horizontal families comprise coarse, medium, and fine grids; an optional extrafine grid augments several of the grid families. These mesh sequences are used to determine asymptotic grid-convergence characteristics of the solution sets and to estimate grid-converged absolute drag levels of the wing–body/horizontal configuration using Richardson extrapolation.