Grid adaption is a popular method to enhance the resolution of flow field and the precision of numerical simulation, which automatically optimizes the grid distribution instead of manual complicated work. There exist usually two grid adaptation methods, the feature based grid adaption and adjoint based grid adaption, the former focuses on shocks, vortexes and other features of flow field, and the latter focuses on lift, drag and other aerodynamic characteristics. The comparison of adjoint based grid adaption and feature based grid adaption method is investigated in this paper. Numerical simulations show that both feature adaption and adjoint adaption could improve the resolution of flow field and the precision of numerical simulation such as lift and drag. As for the flow features, the feature adaptation could capture the obvious shock waves and vortexes in the flow field, the adjoint adaptation, however, only captures the flow features that are contributory to the accuracy of aerodynamic characteristics. As for the aerodynamic characteristics, some shock waves and vortexes have little influences to the forces, so the feature adaptation is not efficient as adjoint adaptation, which could greatly improve the accuracy of aerodynamic characteristics.

Tilt-rotor aircraft combines the vertical take-off and landing function of helicopters with the high-speed cruise function of fixed-wing aircraft, which has given rise to extensive attention in the aviation field, but the complex aerodynamic characteristics of the rotor flow field and the interference of rotor/fuselage have always been tough problems. In recent years, the continuous development of high-performance computer and the combination of high-precision CFD method and dynamic overset grid technology, make it possible to perform fine numerical simulation of tilt-rotor aircraft’s flow field. In this paper, the low-dissipation fifth-order Roe-WENO scheme and overset grid method are used to solve the unsteady N-S equation, and the hovering state of tilt-rotor aircraft is numerically simulated. The result shows: under the interference of ground effect and fountain effect, the lift coefficient of blade when the azimuth angle is 180° to 360° is obviously smaller than that when the azimuth angle is 0° to 180°. The vortex structure of the hovering flow field of V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft is mainly composed of the fountain effect recirculation zone, the tip vortex wake and the root vortex wake. The tip vortex wake develops downwards, shrinks inward and approaches the fuselage. After the root wake falls off, it converges and fuses on the surface of nacelles. The root vortex wake is strong and moves towards the front of the fuselage and the plane of symmetry.