Thirty years of development and application of CFD at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Seattle

Over the last 30 years, Boeing has developed, manufactured, sold, and supported hundreds of billions of dollars worth of commercial airplanes. During this period, it has been absolutely essential that Boeing aerodynamicists have access to tools that accurately predict and confirm vehicle flight characteristics. Thirty years ago, these tools consisted almost entirely of analytic approximation methods, wind tunnel tests, and flight tests. With the development of increasingly powerful computers, numerical simulations of various approximations to the Navier-Stokes equations began supplementing these tools. Collectively, these numerical simulation methods became known as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This paper describes the chronology and issues related to the acquisition, development, and use of CFD at Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Seattle. In particular, it describes the evolution of CFD from a curiosity to a full partner with established tools in the design of cost-effective and high-performing commercial transports.