CFD-BASED COLLABORATIVE DESIGN OPTIMIZATION USING ECFD

摘要

With the advancement of computer technology,CFD has now found its way into the industrialenvironment and become indispensable for theaerodynamic design of aircraft. It remains,however, that a reliable use of CFD requires anexpertise equipped with a sufficiently accuratenumerical algorithm and adequate computingpower.Operating specific CFD software ontypically high-end hardware may entail a steeplearning curve. Consequently, apart fromacquiring a software license and high-endhardware, building and maintaining own CFDsoftware capabilities within a company maybecome undesirably expensive. eCFD, where“e” stands for e-mail, offers a new concept tocircumvent this situation. eCFD facilitates aremote and tailored use of CFD software andcomputing capacity, using e-mail as basicmeans for controlling the flow simulations.The concept of eCFD is described in thispaper. Its viability is demonstrated in aninternational successful collaboration setting,involving two geographically distant locations,Indonesia and The Netherlands. The potential ofeCFD is illustrated by two collaborations,concerning the analysis of a turboprop aircraftin a high-lift configuration (RAI and NLR) anda laminar airfoil design optimization (LAPANand NLR).