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Multigrid multiblock hovering rotor solutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2016

C. B. Allen*
Affiliation:
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

Abstract

The effect of multigrid acceleration implemented within an upwind-biased Euler method for hovering rotor flows is presented. Previous work has considered multigrid convergence for structured single block rotor solutions. However, for forward flight simulation a multiblock approach is essential and, hence, the flow-solver has been extended to include multigrid acceleration within a multiblock solver. The requirement to capture the vortical wake development over several turns means a long numerical integration time is required for hovering rotors, and the solution (wake) away from the blade is significant. Hence, the solution evolution and convergence is different to a fixed wing case where convergence depends primarily on propagating errors away from the surface as quickly as possible, and multigrid acceleration is shown here to be less effective for hovering rotor flows. Previous single block simulations demonstrated that a simple multigrid V-cycle was the most effective, smoothing in the decreasing mesh density direction only, with a relaxed trilinear prolongation operator. This is also shown to be the case for multiblock simulations. Results are presented for multigrid computations with 2, 3, and 4, mesh levels, and a CPU reduction of approximately 80% is demonstrated for 4 mesh levels.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 2004 

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