Numerical Investigation of CL,max Prediction on the NASA High-Lift Common Research Model

Abstract

An assessment of a hybrid Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes/large-eddy simulation (HRLES) approach for [Formula: see text] prediction is presented for the NASA High-Lift Common Research Model (CRM-HL). Both free-air and wind tunnel configurations of the CRM-HL are investigated, and the results are compared to the QinetiQ wind tunnel experiments and two other numerical approaches: RANS and wall-modeled LES (WMLES). For the free-air configuration, HRLES is shown to address some of the known shortcomings with RANS and prevent inboard and outboard flow separation particularly in the region of [Formula: see text] and poststall. To achieve these improvements over RANS, LES-appropriate grids and numerical discretizations are required. It was also found that, when applying HRLES to a RANS best practice grid and numerics, the HRLES method significantly underperformed RANS. For the in-tunnel configuration, HRLES showed good agreement with the loads, surface pressure, and oil-flow photographs obtained in the experiment. HRLES was able to improve upon the RANS simulations, which showed a sharp loss of lift at the two highest angles of attack due to large-scale inboard and outboard separation on the wing, by correctly predicting the corner flow separation and showing remarkably close agreement in the flow topologies with the experiment.