A review of guidelines and best practices for subsonic aerodynamic simulations using RANS CFD

This paper presents a review of guidelines and best practices for low-speed aerodynamic simulations of aircraft using finite volume RANS CFD methods. Recommendations for geometry preparation, domain size as well as surface and volume mesh refinements are given. It is found that 100 surface cells in the flow direction are usually appropriate for most aircraft components. RANS wall treatment methods are crucial, and only a full discretization of the boundary layer is appropriate in aerodynamic simulations. Different aspects of choosing temporal discretization, boundary conditions and solver algorithms are briefly presented. It is recommended to use a pressure-based solver due to its distinct advantages in low-speed flows. Both Spalart-Allmaras and Menter’s SST turbulence models have proven accurate for aerodynamic flows. Turbulence models should be adjusted with non-linear constitutive relations that greatly enhance prediction accuracy. The paper also presents multiple guidelines for checking plausibility that focus on flow visualizations of different components.