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RBF-based mesh morphing approach to perform icing simulations in the aviation sector

Corrado Groth (Department of Enterprise Engineering, Universita degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy)
Emiliano Costa (RINA Consulting S.p.A., Rome, Italy)
Marco Evangelos Biancolini (Department of Enterprise Engineering, Universita degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy)

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology

ISSN: 0002-2667

Article publication date: 26 February 2019

Issue publication date: 17 May 2019

239

Abstract

Purpose

Numerical simulation of icing has become a standard. Once the iced shape is known, however, the analyst needs to update the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) grid. This paper aims to propose a method to update the numerical mesh with ice profiles.

Design/methodology/approach

The present paper concerns a novel and fast radial basis functions (RBF) mesh morphing technique to efficiently and accurately perform ice accretion simulations on industrial models in the aviation sector. This method can be linked to CFD analyses to dynamically reproduce the ice growth.

Findings

To verify the consistency of the proposed approach, one of the most challenging ice profile selected in the LEWICE manual was replicated and simulated through CFD. To showcase the effectiveness of this technique, predefined ice profiles were automatically applied on two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) cases using both commercial and open-source CFD solvers.

Practical implications

If ice accreted shapes are available, the meshless characteristic of the proposed approach enables its coupling with the CFD solvers currently supported by the RBF4AERO platform including OpenFOAM, SU2 and ANSYS Fluent. The advantages provided by the use of RBF are the high performance and reliability, due to the fast application of mesh smoothing and the accuracy in controlling surface mesh nodes.

Originality/value

As far as authors’ knowledge is concerned, this is the first time in scientific literature that RBF are proposed to handle icing simulations. Due to the meshless characteristic of the RBF mesh morphing, the proposed approach is cross solver and can be used for both 2D and 3D geometries.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the RBF4AERO project funded in part by the EUs 7th Framework Programme (FP7-AAT, 2007 - 2013) under Grant Agreement no. 605396.

Citation

Groth, C., Costa, E. and Biancolini, M.E. (2019), "RBF-based mesh morphing approach to perform icing simulations in the aviation sector", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 91 No. 4, pp. 620-633. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-07-2018-0178

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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