User-Friendly CFD: Application to TRANAIR for Analysis of Transport Aircraft

CFD modeling codes, especially those able to analyze general geometries, have traditionally been difficult for users to operate. Unfortunately, this situation often limits the availability of CFD tools to “expert” users and those engineers that have the luxury of going through the CFD learning curve to gain proficiency with a specific technology. A process has been created at Boeing that allows users with only modest experience with CFD analysis to construct and analyze typical transport configurations (e.g., wing/body/strut/nacelle/horizontal and vertical tails) in a single day. The process starts with surface lofts and ends with the required data for engineering decisions. This paper will discuss the design and implementation considerations of such a process and will describe its application to TRANAIR, a full-potential CFD solver with coupled boundary layer for complex geometries. It will also describe the lessons learned and their application to Navier-Stokes solvers.