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Progress on the boundary element method to study the disturbance fields of bodies moving in an unbounded medium

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Abstract

For studying flow problems involved with complex physics it is now common to use numerical field methods for solving Navier-Stokes or Euler equations. However, for a large class of fluid mechanics problems, which can be dealt with linearized potential equations, the boundary element method proves to be quite useful, especially for its easy application and relatively less computational effort compared to the field methods. The boundary element method has undergone some significant advancements in the last decade with respect to the study of steady and unsteady flow problems concerning wing aerodynamics in compressible medium, flow fields of propellers and rotors and acoustical disturbance propagation from moving bodies. In this paper a few recent contributions which evolved in the DLR as research projects and as doctoral and diploma thesis of the Technical University Braunschweig are concisely described.

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Abbreviations

a :

Sound velocity

b :

Span of a wing

c p :

Coefficient of static pressure

c dp :

Coefficient of profile drag

c 1, c d, cm :

Coefficient of lift, drag and moment per unit span width

c L, cD, cM :

Total lift, drag and moment-coefficients

c T, cP :

Thrust and power-coefficient of a propeller

d :

Distance

D:

Doublet strength

e :

Specific heat energy

E :

Total energy in a moving medium element

f :

Frequency

F :

Field point

g :

Gravitational acceleration

h :

Radial distance in cylinder coordinates

I 1, I 2 :

Inducing functions

i, j, k :

Unit vectors in cartesian coordinates

k :

Wave number [ω/a ∞]

l :

Local wing-chord

l 0, l v :

Length of singularity element at t oand t v

m :

Notation for Fourier-component

M, M * :

Mach number based on local and critical sound speed

n :

Number of rotation per second

n:

Unit normal vector to a surface

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute SM-EA, DLR Braunschweig Professor, Fluid Mech., Techn. Univ. Braunschweig, Postfach 3267, D-38022, Braunschweig, Germany

    A. Das

  2. Institute SM-EA, DLR Braunschweig Lilienthalplatz 7, D-38108, Braunschweig, Germany

    S. R. Ahmed

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Communicated by H. Antes and T. A. Cruse, 10 August 1994

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Das, A., Ahmed, S.R. Progress on the boundary element method to study the disturbance fields of bodies moving in an unbounded medium. Computational Mechanics 15, 315–333 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00372270

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