CFD Simulations of the Pazy Wing in Support of the Third Aeroelastic Prediction Workshop

Abstract

The Pazy Wing test case is a benchmark for the investigation of aeroelastic effects at very large deflections. Tip deformations in the order of 50% span were measured in wind tunnel tests, which renders this model highly attractive for the validation of numerical aeroelastic methods and tools for geometrically nonlinear, large deflection analyses. Due to the low flow velocity (up to 60 m/s) and the simple geometry of the wing, simulation programs based on subsonic, linear potential aerodynamic solvers (such as VLM and UVLM) are an ideal basis for static coupling and flutter simulations. However, more comprehensive analyses with focus on aerodynamic nonlinearities such as stall and limit cycle oscillations (which have been observed in several wind tunnel tests) are attractive research topics but call for advanced aerodynamic methods. The present work is thus focused on high fidelity aerodynamic simulations of the Pazy Wing using RANS with transition modeling in order to capture nonlinear effects originating from the particular shape of the wing and the low Reynolds number. It is a collaborative activity of DLR, NASA, and TU Delft and supports the Large Deflection Working Group (LDWG), which is one of the sub-groups of the 3rd Aeroelastic Prediction Workshop (AePW3).