PDE-based Laminar-Turbulent Transition Modeling for Complex Aerodynamic Flows

This is a hybrid seminar and can be viewed via Zoom at the link above, or in-person in Scott Lab, room E525
 

Guest Speaker: Dr. James Coder, University of Tennessee

Host: Datta Gaitonde

Background: Dr. Jim Coder is an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a position which he has held since August 2016. Prior to this, he was research faculty in Computational Mechanics at the Penn State Applied Research Laboratory. His current research focuses on computational aerodynamics with applications to ultra-efficient commercial aircraft, hypersonic vehicles, and rotorcraft, along with the development of reduced-order transition and turbulence models. He leads a NASA-funded University Leadership Initiative project to develop slotted, natural-laminar-flow airfoil technology for N+3 commercial transports, and coordinates research efforts by 6 universities and 2 companies. Dr. Coder is a Senior Member of AIAA and is the chair-elect of the AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Technical Committee (APATC) with his term beginning in May 2022. He also leads the APATC CFD Transition Modeling Discussion Group, which organized the 1^st AIAA CFD Transition Modeling and Prediction Workshop held in January 2021.

Abstract: Laminar-turbulent transition is a critical phenomenon in aerodynamic flows and can have a leading-order impact on flight vehicle performance. In many cases of practical interest, prediction of transition from first principles can be prohibitively difficult due to high Reynolds numbers, geometric complexities, and inherent unsteadiness limiting the ability to perform direct numerical simulations or detailed stability analysis. In response to these challenges, there is great interest by the aerodynamics community in PDE-based transition models that are fully compatible with industrial computational fluid dynamics solvers. Although boundary-layer transition is widely accepted to be a non-local phenomenon, PDE-based models are generally phenomenological in nature and are built on single-point correlations. Such models may be used without excessive increases in grid resolution or sacrificing parallel scalability, and they may be applied to general three-dimensional aerodynamic configurations with minimal user intervention. An overview of leading PDE-based models will be presented, including the amplification factor transport (AFT) model developed by Dr. Coder. The AFT model has been successfully applied to a wide range of engineering applications including the design of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter. A brief summary of results and lessons learned from the 1^st AIAA CFD Transition Modeling and Prediction Workshop will also be presented.