Practical three-dimensional aerodynamic design and optimization using unstructured meshes

A methodology for performing optimization on three-dimensional unstructured grids based on the Euler equations is presented. The same, low-memory-cost explicit relaxation algorithm is used to resolve the discrete equations that govern the flow, linearized direct, and adjoint problems. The analysis scheme is a high-resolution local-extremum-diminishing-type scheme that uses Roe decomposition for the dissipative fluxes, Mesh movement is performed in such a way that optimization of arbitrary geometries is allowed. The parallelization of the algorithm, which permits its extension to optimization of realistic, complete aircraft geometries, is presented, Two sample optimizations are performed, The first is the inverse design of a transonic wing/body configuration using a surface target pressure distribution found by analyzing the geometry for known design variable deflections. The second exercise is the inverse design of a business jet configuration consisting of wing, body, strut, nacelle, horizontal fin, and vertical fin, The surface target pressure distribution in this case is provided by an analysis of the configuration with no strut-nacelle.