Hierarchical Variable Fidelity Methods for Rotorcraft Aerodynamic Design and Analysis

A coupling framework has been developed for unstructured computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers to allow for simple activation of a variety of wake solvers. In addition, the interface has been parallelized and extended to support dynamic, overset meshes in rotating frames. Wake capture and performance calculations demonstrate the validity of the framework. Demonstration cases include an oscillating wing, the hovering Caradonna-Tung rotor and ROBIN rotor-fuselage interaction for multiple coupling variations between CHARM, VorTran-M, and FUN3D. These results illustrate that the hybrid methods can provide more accurate results with reduced grid sizes for various applications. The modification of only one solver at each incremental level of analysis permits the user to identify the source of changes in solution results.