CFD-BASED COLLABORATIVE DESIGN OPTIMIZATION USING ECFD

摘要

With the advancement of computer technology, CFD has now found its way into the industrial environment and become indispensable for the aerodynamic design of aircraft. It remains, however, that a reliable use of CFD requires an expertise equipped with a sufficiently accurate numerical algorithm and adequate computing power. Operating specific CFD software on typically high-end hardware may entail a steep learning curve. Consequently, apart from acquiring a software license and high-end hardware, building and maintaining own CFD software capabilities within a company may become undesirably expensive. eCFD, where “e” stands for e-mail, offers a new concept to circumvent this situation. eCFD facilitates a remote and tailored use of CFD software and computing capacity, using e-mail as basic means for controlling the flow simulations. The concept of eCFD is described in this paper. Its viability is demonstrated in an international successful collaboration setting, involving two geographically distant locations, Indonesia and The Netherlands. The potential of eCFD is illustrated by two collaborations, concerning the analysis of a turboprop aircraft in a high-lift configuration (RAI and NLR) and a laminar airfoil design optimization (LAPAN and NLR).