Aeroelastic Computations of an Isolated Rotor in Forward Flight with a Dual-Solver Hybrid CFD/CSD Methodology in HPCMP CREATE-AV Helios

Advancements in coupling techniques between computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural dynamics (CSD) codes have permitted highly-accurate computations of rotor aeromechanics. The computational fluid dynamics portion of these methods can be extraordinarily expensive, however, so the application of dual-solver hybrid codes is of interest. This work investigates best practices for the application of the dual-solver hybrid code OVERCHARM within the Helios framework in a CFD/CSD coupled simulation, and compares the accuracy and computational cost to conventional Helios CFD/CSD simulations in two different flight conditions. It was found that large time steps and a contiguous OVERFLOW domain are most appropriate for this application, and that Helios OVERCHARM simulations can provide aerodynamic and structural loads with the same level of accuracy as conventional Helios simulations at a 2-10X speedup.