A Power Based Analysis for a Transonic Transport Aircraft Configuration through 3D RANS Simulations

This paper presents a power-based analysis through 3D Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations for a typical transonic transport aircraft resented by the DLR-F6 model. Two configurations were employed in CFD simulations. The original F6 model geometry was defined as the wing body configuration, and a wake-filling actuator disc was added to the F6 model to establish the BLI configuration. This study proposes a segregated 3D computational domain in RANS simulations to track the change in power terms in the flow field so that the power conversion process can be studied and visualized. For the wing body configuration, the power-based analysis illustrated the power conversion process, showing that about 35% of the total power input remains in the form of the mechanical power of aircraft wake at the outlet plane. For the BLI configuration, 22% of the total power input was left in the form of the mechanical power of downstream flow mixed with the wake and jet at the outlet plane. This study elaborates on the error of the mechanical power imbalance, showing that the convergence in aircraft drag does not necessarily lead to a small error in 3D RANS simulations. The high value of power imbalance error is associated with the wing.