Comparative Study of Turbulence Models in CFD for Transonic Flow Over the ONERA M6 Wing

Abstract

Transonic flight has long been a complex area of study in aeronautics, primarily due to phenomena such as shock waves and turbulent boundary layer interactions that cause flow separation and instabilities. This study leverages Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to analyze these effects using ANSYS-Fluent 2020R1. The ONERA M6 wing serves as the model for assessing the performance of five turbulence models: Spalart-Allmaras, k-ε Standard, k-ε Realizable, k-ω Standard, and k-ω SST. Under specific flow conditions (angle of attack, α = 3.06°, Mach number, M ∞ = 0.8395, and Reynolds number, Re = 11.72×10^6), the CFD simulations closely matched experimental data. The comparative analysis demonstrated that all five models produced results within a 5% margin of error compared to NASA's CFD results. Notably, the Spalart-Allmaras and k-ω SST models showed the highest accuracy in predicting shock formation and pressure distribution. This study confirms the robustness of ANSYS-Fluent in evaluating aerodynamic performance and supports its continued application in aerospace engineering for enhancing aircraft design efficiency and safety.