Numerical study on flow fields and aerodynamics of tilt rotor aircraft in conversion mode based on embedded grid and actuator model

A method combining rotor actuator disk model and embedded grid technique is presented in this paper, aimed at predicting the flow fields and aerodynamic characteristics of tilt rotor aircraft in conversion mode more efficiently and effectively. In this method, rotor’s influence is considered in terms of the momentum it impacts to the fluid around it; transformation matrixes among different coordinate systems are deduced to extend actuator method’s utility to conversion mode flow fields’ calculation. Meanwhile, an embedded grid system is designed, in which grids generated around fuselage and actuator disk are regarded as background grid and minor grid respectively, and a new method is presented for ‘donor searching’ and ‘hole cutting’ during grid assembling. Based on the above methods, flow fields of tilt rotor aircraft in conversion mode are simulated, with three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations discretized by a second-order upwind finite-volume scheme and an implicit lower–upper symmetric Gauss–Seidel (LU-SGS) time-stepping scheme. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed CFD method is very effective in simulating the conversion mode flow fields of tilt rotor aircraft.