Numerical Simulation of the F-16XL at Full-Scale Flight Test Conditions Using a Near-Body Off-Body CFD Approach

Abstract

The F-16XL flight vehicle has been used extensively to study the aerodynamics of medium to high-angle-of-attack flight. Flight test data, including surface pressures, is available for a wide range of flight conditions, allowing direct comparison between computational fluid dynamics and fullscale flight data. The most recent comprehensive study, made possible by NASA, was conducted by NATO Task Group AVT-113 and had participants from many different countries. One of the conclusions of the study was that unsteady flow simulations with high-resolution turbulence treatment was necessary to compare well with the high-angle-of-attack flight test data. The current work applies the HPCMP CREATE TM -AV Kestrel fixed-wing simulation tool to the F-16XL configuration at high-angle-of-attack flight conditions. Kestrel couples a near-body, spatially 2 nd -order solver with an off-body, spatially 3 rd -or 5 th -order solver to achieve a very high-resolution computation of the aerodynamic features of the flow-field. Adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) is also performed in the off-body domain as the solution progresses to maintain the vortical structures away from the body. The resulting simulation data is compared to flight test data, and found to be in very good agreement for this flight condition.

A Synthesis of Hybrid CFD Results for F-16XL Aircraft Aerodynamics

“…All of these codes are well vetted with established user communities, although the hybrid RANS/LES capability is relatively new to EDGE and USM3D. Additional details of the codes can be found among the individual application papers [6][7][8][9][10][11] of this study. As part of the approach to this study, all partners followed their internal best-practice guidelines.…”

“…This particular case, identified as FC-25, has M = 0.242, Rcref = 32.22 x 10 6 , and  = 19.84°. Five studies [6][7][8][9][10] were published in this special session entitled "Hybrid CFD Method Assessments for F-16XL Aircraft Aerodynamics," and five numerical formulations were used. This paper presents a synthesis of those individual findings.…”