Computation of propulsion-related flowfields using unstructured adaptive meshes

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique based on unstructured triangular/tetrahedral meshes. A finite-volume scheme is used in conjunction with a multi-stage Runge-Kutta algorithm. Convergence enhancements in the form of dual time-stepping and time-derivative preconditioning are used to overcome the limitations of conventional multi-stage schemes. The method is applied to propulsion-related flows and shown to perform satisfactorily.