Back to top: Aerodynamic Design of Aircraft with Computational Software
To obtain the software, please send an email to aerodesign@airinnova.se for instructions. Information you are willing to share, such as affiliation (university, company, …) , role (student, teacher, …) and purpose for using the software will help us adapt the material, but no such information is required. We follow GDPR to protect your privacy.
About the software: All packages are installed in a Virtual Machine Ubuntu20.04LTS which runs on the student's local machine. Standrad worflows are set up and there is no need to manage search paths, file names, and the like. We have used the Oracle VMbox installation but other virtualization environments such as VMware may also work. The file is large, currently 18GB, so will take some time to send. The software is used by professionals and has, with the exception of the MSES package, not been made into "student demo" versions with less capability than the professional version. It follows that once you have learned the ropes you can apply the tools to more demanding exercises, such as analysis and design tasks of your own. This use will need more compute power than is harnessed in the VM so you may have to install the software so that can use the full power of your machine, notably, all the cores. But by then, if you have followed the tutorials, you'll know how to do that.
Instructions for installation of VM host software and the VM
coming soon
CFD RANS code access
The intended use of this text assumes access to a validated and reliable RANS solver. The GNU public license SU2 RANS CFD package is installed in the VM and easily exercised through pre-defined “workflows” from a geometry defined in a CPACS XML file.
If you want to run outside the VM there are other options. Quite a number of aerospace RANS codes exist today, and there are three broad avenues to access and use:
- Commercial software, the Numeca codes, CFD++, Ansys Fluent, Star-cd, etc.
- Partnership software based on agreement in a group of joint contributors/developers; for example, in Europe:
- the Tau code between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and certain German universities;
- the elsA code between the French National Aerospace Research Center (ONERA) and certain French universities and institutes;
- the Edge code between the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) and Swedish universities;
- the NSMB code between Computational Fluid and Structures Engineering (CFSE) and agreed partners, etc.
There are similar partnerships in the USA; for example:
- the fun3d code between NASA and certain universities;
- the Kestrel code between the US Air Force and certain universities;
3. Open-source software, SU2, OpenFOAM, etc. The VM provides the SU2 code. The book gives a brief overview of the Edge code, the basic technology of which is very similar to SU2.