On The Role and Challenges of CFD in The Aerospace Industry

The Aeronautical Journal January 2016 Volume 120 No 1223 209
pp 209–232. © Royal Aeronautical Society 2016

doi: 10.1017/aer.2015.10
On the role and challenges of

CFD in the aerospace industry
P. R. Spalart
Boeing Commercial Airplanes
Seattle
USA
V. Venkatakrishnan
Boeing Commercial Airplanes
Seattle
USA
CD-adapco
Bellevue
USA
ABSTRACT
This article examines the increasingly crucial role played by Computational Fluid Dynamics
(CFD) in the analysis, design, certification, and support of aerospace products. The status of
CFD is described, and we identify opportunities for CFD to have a more substantial impact.
The challenges facing CFD are also discussed, primarily in terms of numerical solution,
computing power, and physical modelling. We believe the community must find a balance
between enthusiasm and rigor. Besides becoming faster and more affordable by exploiting
higher computing power, CFD needs to become more reliable, more reproducible across
users, and better understood and integrated with other disciplines and engineering processes.
Uncertainty quantification is universally considered as a major goal, but will be slow to
take hold. The prospects are good for steady problems with Reynolds-Averaged Navier-
Stokes (RANS) turbulence modelling to be solved accurately and without user intervention
within a decade – even for very complex geometries, provided technologies, such as solution
adaptation are matured for large three-dimensional problems. On the other hand, current
projections for supercomputers show a future rate of growth only half of the rate enjoyed
from the 1990s to 2013; true exaflop performance is not close. This will delay pure Large-
Eddy Simulation (LES) for aerospace applications with their high Reynolds numbers, but
hybrid RANS-LES approaches have great potential. Our expectations for a breakthrough
in turbulence, whether within traditional modelling or LES, are low and as a result off-
design flow physics including separation will continue to pose a substantial challenge, as will
laminar-turbulent transition. We also advocate for much improved user interfaces, providing
instant access to rich numerical and physical information as well as warnings over solution
quality, and thus naturally training the user.
Keywords: CFD; aerodynamics; numerical methods; turbulence modeling
This is an invited paper to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Aeronautical Society in January 1866.
210 The Aeronautical Journal January 2016
NOMENCLATURE
APU auxiliary power unit
CFD computational fluid dynamics
CRM common research model
DES detached-eddy simulation
DOF degree of freedom
DNS direct numerical simulation
ECS environmental control systems
FMC flight management computer
GPGPU General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit
IBL integral boundary layer
LES large-eddy simulation
MLA manoeuvre load alleviation
ODE ordinary differential equation
PDE partial differential equation
RANS Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes
S&C stability and control
UQ Uncertainty Quantification
WMLES Wall-modeled LES
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become instrumental in the design and analysis of
products in the aerospace industry as well as in surface transportation industries including
automobiles, trucks, and boats. This paper is written from the perspective of (external)
aerodynamics, although many of the issues identified carry over to the other application areas.
Turbomachinery is covered elsewhere in this special issue of the journal. It is fair to write that
CFD has had a tremendous although gradual impact on both commercial and military aircraft.
The use of CFD in commercial aircraft is well documented(1,2) , with particular success in the
design of the high-speed wing (cruise shape) and its close integration with the engine, dating
back to the Boeing 737 Classic of the late 1980s. The extensive use of CFD in the latest aircraft
from Boeing is illustrated in the ‘walk-around’ chart depicted in Fig. 1; Airbus has presented a
similar chart. It is seen that in certain areas the use of CFD is at a mature state but there are also
emerging areas where CFD is expected to affect aircraft design in significant ways only in the
future. The role played by CFD in helicopter design is documented in a 2007 paper by Strawn
et al(3) ; we have failed to find more recent overviews, although there is vibrant activity on
subproblems such as a rotor in hover. Since the helicopter is even more complex than the high-
lift configuration of an aircraft, it is no surprise that comprehensive CFD treatments are not in
routine use. In the area of fighter aircraft and the many other military systems, there is under-
standably less public documentation. Nevertheless, the aerodynamic problems are similar if
with different emphases. In the area of automobile design, CFD plays a crucial role in determ-
ining optimal aerodynamic shapes(4) , prediction of aerodynamic forces(5) , as well as in under-
standing the sources of noise generated by protuberances. CFD also contributes to the design
of wind turbines and wind farms(6) , while its role in ships is discussed in detail in Ref. 7.
CFD is increasingly being used in multi-disciplinary design and analysis of aerospace
products. Examples of these include high-speed aerodynamic design taking into account
the flexibility of wings (aeroelastics), icing models, far-field noise propagation models and
Spalart ET AL On the role and challenges of cfd in the aerospace… 211
Figure 1. Impact of CFD at Boeing. Green areas have strong CFD penetration;
blue areas have some penetration; red areas present future opportunities.
conjugate heat transfer. An attractive development is the use of a range of CFD tools to
calculate the benefits of formation flight for large aircrafts(8) . Increasingly, CFD results
are compared directly with flight test, rather than wind tunnel, and the status of the two
sources of information in the engineering process and company culture is slowly shifting,
with enlightened organisations drawing on both to good effect. It is important to transition
from wind tunnel to CFD for the right reasons, such as wall effects or Reynolds number
and aeroelastics, whereas doing so only for speed and cost advantages has its dangers. We
believe there is a tendency towards overconfidence in CFD in some circles, even to the extent
of ignoring well-known sources of error, which creates a risk of backlash, were CFD to be
blamed for costly mistakes.
CFD still faces several challenges that need to be addressed. The turnaround time associated
with CFD is one of the factors limiting the use of CFD in the design and creation of databases
and also in multi-disciplinary applications. Another limiting factor is the level of skills
required of the user of CFD. CFD practiced in industry is vastly different from the CFD theory
taught in universities, especially in the late 20th century. A long lead time can be required for
a user of CFD to become proficient in all the various phases of CFD (geometry preparation,
gridding, solution set-up, post-processing). Other limitations include various uncertainties
in CFD related to numerics, physical modelling (especially transition and turbulence), and
the time involved in preparing geometries for carrying out grid generation and aerodynamic
analyses. The latter two tasks are still highly manual and in many instances dominate in terms
of effort, compared to the solution of the fluid-dynamic equations.
This paper lays out the present and future roles we see for CFD in the design and analysis
of commercial aircraft as well as the detailed prediction of their performance, and at some
point their certification (in the case of military aircraft, the word certification is replaced
by qualification). Boeing and its competitors are very conservative companies, first of all
because of their passion for safety, but also because of the extreme industrial consequences
of any design mistakes. Flaws uncovered during assembly or flight test of a new model cause
considerable disruptions for the entry into service. The corresponding financial impacts are
very large, and the possibility that the new aircraft model would be impossible to certify short
of, say, a complete redesign of the wing would be a nightmare. As a result, the penetration
of CFD is gradual, often involving agreement amongst large communities, from engineers to
top managers to company pilots, and acceptance by government agencies such as the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA).
This paper may be viewed as attempting to provide a wider update to the vision spelled
out in the paper by Spalart and Bogue for off-design studies(9) and a somewhat narrower,
more technical, and at times more critical view of the future than is spelled out in the
well-researched Vision 2030 document(10) . Our thesis is laid out in Sections 2, 3, and
4. In Section 2, we examine the role played by CFD in various aspects of the aircraft.
These include high-speed (cruise) wing design, low-speed (high-lift system) analysis, internal
flows, stability and control (S&C), vibration, and noise prediction. We also make projections
regarding the role we envision for CFD in the 2040 time frame under realistic assumptions.
Section 3 is devoted to examining the principal challenges that we see in improving the quality
and reliability of CFD. In this section, we discuss issues related to geometric modelling,
computing-power limitations, numerical accuracy, physical modelling, and interaction with
other disciplines. We argue that there is much room for improvement, and we categorically
state that CFD is far from being a ‘solved problem’ or even one that would be resolved by
unlimited computing power. Section 4 lays out our ideas for user awareness and education
as they relate to CFD. We believe these ideas will produce better-informed and more careful
CFD practitioners. They will also enable better communication of results from CFD, help non-
CFD experts relate more easily to them, and more importantly trust the results to the degree
warranted. We finally offer our projections and prospects for CFD in the Conclusions section.
2.0 PRESENT AND FUTURE ROLES OF CFD FOR

ANALYSIS, DESIGN, AND CERTIFICATION
There are two primary ways in which CFD is used in the aerospace industry. The predominant
use is in the analysis phase. Given a geometry definition, flow conditions, and appropriate
boundary conditions, the task is to compute the flow field, with sufficient accuracy in the
region close to the aircraft (wake-vortex applications require special provisions to maintain the
accuracy much farther downstream). An appropriate physical model is used. This can and does
span the gamut from lifting line and vortex lattice methods to panel methods (potential flow)
and Euler equations coupled with Integral Boundary-Layer (IBL) formulations, Reynolds-
Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) formulations which require turbulence to be modelled, to
Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) methods in which all the scales of turbulent motion
are captured. It is essential for users to choose the most appropriate level of sophistication
and cost for each application. Except for panel methods that are classified as boundary
integral methods, all the other formulations require a grid to be generated that fills the space
occupied by the fluid. And herein there are multiple choices as well: single-structured grid for
simple topologies, multi-block structured, overset and unstructured. We believe automatic grid
adaptation, or ‘self-gridding,’ is a very powerful ingredient of CFD; however, it has proven
very difficult, and even the talent in government, industry, and academia and the competition
amongst CFD code suppliers have had only modest levels of success.
The Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) governing fluid flow are then discretised using
any of a variety of methods: finite volume, finite elements (continuous and discontinuous) with
many choices available for numerical flux approximations. That such a variety of methods
exists in CFD, with no clear winners and losers, after so many years of research is surprising
indeed; this is not the case in other fields such as structural mechanics. At this point, one
also settles on the order of accuracy desired, second order being the most common, although
methods possessing higher-order accuracy are becoming more practical. After discretising the
time derivative, the last aspect is to solve the non-linear system of equations to obtain a flow
field at every time step or the steady flow field at all the discrete locations (grid points). Once
the flow field is computed, one is able to extract global quantities of interest, such as forces
and moments as well as local flow-field characteristics such as skin friction, velocity and
temperature profiles, surface pressures, entropy, and total pressure. A flow field, even steady,
computed with CFD is rich in information. Typically, however, much of it is ignored in favor
of near-field quantities such as surface pressures, and force and moment coefficients.
Regardless of the level of approximation chosen for the flow model, when a reliable solver
capability has been achieved, it is possible to automate many of the phases of CFD. Much
of the internal work in industry consists of building and validating tools built around solvers
from various sources. This is particularly true with respect to geometry and grid generation if
geometric complexity is restricted (e.g., cruise wing, body, nacelle, horizontal and vertical tail
in the case of commercial aircraft). With sufficient speed and automation and some established
level of confidence in CFD, it is then possible to generate an entire aerodynamic database, for
certification and possibly to drive flight simulators. This is already being done to a degree
with full-potential and Euler equations.
At present, CFD and wind tunnel are used in a complementary fashion. The initial cost of
CFD can be substantially lower than the initial cost of a wind-tunnel test (model fabrication,
installation, and so on) but the cost comparison switches in favor of the wind tunnel when
hundreds of conditions are needed such as drag polars over a Mach-number range (and
possibly yaw angles, control-surface positions, and the like).This is separate from the accuracy
issues, which we discuss at length in Section 3 for CFD. In the wind tunnel, Reynolds number
limitations (requiring scaling to flight conditions), tunnel-wall effects, and the inability to
include aeroelastic effects very accurately are dominant (although knowing the exact shape
for CFD purposes is not easy either). We believe with sufficient investment, many of the
shortcomings associated with CFD can be addressed providing sufficient confidence in CFD to
enable entire aerodynamic databases to be generated. Venturing further, it may be possible to
‘fly the Navier-Stokes equations’ someday, if computers and algorithms get powerful enough
to accurately calculate the flow over the aircraft in real time even during manoeuvres far from
the design point(9) .
Once a reliable analysis capability is in hand, it becomes possible to use it in the context
of product design. This provides a crucial advantage over wind-tunnel design work, for which
even a subtle twist or aerofoil change requires the fabrication of another wing. For commercial
applications, at the cruise condition, a 1% difference in lift/drag ratio is very significant. As
a first step away from straightforward analysis, initially CFD was used to produce the shapes
that would achieve target pressure distributions on wings; this is referred to as inverse design.
However, this approach requires that favourable pressure distributions be known in advance,
with no assurance that this could be achieved through changes in design parameters, especially
in transonic flow where the Hugoniot relations are unavoidable (since smooth shapes are
needed, so that the shocks are normal to the wall). A more modern and better approach is to
cast the design problem as an optimisation problem with constraints. One defines an objective
function (e.g., drag coefficient) and sets about minimising this objective function with respect
to the design variables (shapes, freestream Mach number, angle-of-attack etc.) subject to the
flow equations being satisfied as well as other geometric and flow constraints (lift coefficient).
Also, effective optimisation approaches use ‘multi-point’ design to avoid the pitfall of creating
a point design, which would perform very well in only one condition, and develop problems
such as strong shocks and separation at other conditions(11) . The gradient-based optimisation
algorithm requires the formation of the gradient (dI/dD where I is the objective function and
D is a design variable). There are multiple ways of computing the gradient, for example, via
finite differences, direct method (which requires the inversion of the large Jacobian matrix
dR/du where R is the residual and u is the vector of unknowns), and the adjoint method. The
latter is particularly efficient with the effort independent of the number of design variables.
The gradient-based approach only computes a local minimum. Global optimisation techniques
typically do not use gradient information. Instead, they form a response surface from the
seeds and selectively refine this surface in regions of interest. Global optimisation techniques
are limited to handling only a small number of variables because the number of analysis
runs required varies as O(ND 2 ) where ND is the number of design variables. There are some
approaches that combine elements of the global and local optimisation techniques.
Potential new areas for CFD to contribute are in the certification of various phases of
an aircraft development, and in airline customer support. In addition to communicating to
authorities the abilities of CFD to produce results that can be trusted for particular needs, it is
imperative that CFD processes become traceable and repeatable. Efforts are already underway
for certification using CFD in specific instances, such as small changes in configuration.
In fact, ‘certification by analysis’ refers to establishing information via theory, comparisons
amongst aircraft models, and ground tests, and not only by CFD, with a view to making some
flight tests unnecessary. The principal motivations for this are cost, schedule, and avoidance
of danger during flight testing. Concerted efforts are needed if much of the database in the
flight simulator is to be populated using CFD. The level of uncertainty associated with CFD
needs to be quantified and deemed to be acceptable by the technical experts in the particular
application area before approaching the certification authorities, or even the company test
pilots. This uncertainty will be compared with the inherent noise in flight-test measurements.
Wind tunnels have their errors, but they have been very stable (only the few cryogenic facilities
that can achieve full-scale Reynolds numbers for large commercial transports are relatively
new), so that the extrapolation from wind tunnel to flight is built on a considerable knowledge
base. This is hardly the case for a CFD capability, which is rapidly evolving from year to year.
We now discuss different areas of CFD applications in more detail.
2.1 High-speed flight conditions

CFD is relied upon heavily in the design of the high-speed wing (cruise). It is a particular
challenge to design the wing in the presence of nacelle and engine, and the Boeing 737 in its
several generations has greatly benefited from this capability. The ever-higher by-pass ratios
and fan sizes in recent models and derivatives also benefit from it. CFD has evolved to a
point that wings can be designed for optimal performance taking into account the interaction
with the nacelle and the engine, and with acceptable off-design behaviour through multi-
point design. It is now the case that wings are designed using CFD, and confirmed in the
wind tunnel, and that very few wings are tested. In the case of Boeing, one of the primary
design tools is the TRANAIR optimisation tool(12) , which features a full-potential formulation
coupled with an Integral Boundary-Layer (IBL) method, solution-adaptive gridding, and
shape changes effected via changes in transpiration velocities. The latter feature eliminates the
need to generate body-fitted grids around changing geometries, which is a major shortcoming
when using RANS codes. The level of confidence in CFD is very high in and around cruise
Figures 2 (a) and 2(b). Lift-drag polars at two CFD workshops. Left: high-speed, clean-wing configuration,
workshop DPW4(13) . Bullets: experiments in two NASA wind tunnels; lines: CFD results from various
authors. Right: high-lift configuration, workshop HiLift2(14) . Diamonds: experiment; triangles: CFD results
from various authors.
conditions. We acknowledge that transport aircraft configurations near cruise conditions are
special with thin boundary layers and essentially irrotational flow elsewhere (outside of shocks
and wakes), which permit the full-potential formulation, coupled with IBL, to do surprisingly
well. Other components, such as fairings and aft bodies, are designed using Navier-Stokes
solvers. In the full-flight regime outside of the cruise range, there is less confidence in CFD.
For general configurations with more complex flow physics or for off-design conditions and
especially buffet, at least the Euler with IBL or RANS level of modelling is needed, of course
without any claim of perfection. Still, Fig. 2(a) presented at a high-speed workshop for a
representative commercial aircraft wing suggests that a high level of confidence has been
established, although still not fine enough for drag prediction to rely only on CFD. Recall the
importance of a 1% change in drag in the commercial aircraft business. The figure shows that
many codes give very similar and accurate answers, and a few are ‘outliers.’ We elected to
preserve those in the figure and thus render the full state of the art, knowing that in industrial
use, these codes would not be trusted.
2.2 High-lift configurations

The level of confidence in CFD when dealing with flow past complex configurations such as
high lift (with leading-edge and trailing-edge devices deployed) is considerably less compared
to the high-speed clean-wing area. This is illustrated in Fig. 2(b). The figure again has a
cluster of similar results, and a minority of outliers. However, even for the cluster of more-
accurate curves, the CFD drag is somewhat too high in the intermediate range, and conversely
the maximum lift is too high and delayed to too high an angle-of-attack. Experimental
comparisons demand more care at high-lift coefficients, for instance 3 instead of 0.7, in
particular because of stronger wall interference. We find it unfortunate that the general practice
is to run CFD ‘in free air’ at an angle-of-attack corrected from the wind-tunnel value. It
would be best to run CFD with solid walls, even if treated as inviscid, without corrections. We
recognise that this is more difficult for transonic tunnels with slotted walls. All three of lift,
drag, and pitching moment would be more representative of the true predictions of CFD. This
presentation also ignores the presence of multiple solutions for this very geometry, discussed
in Section 3.3. In addition to the obvious difference in complexity of the geometry, a strong
contributing factor is that for the clean wing, the viscous wake is thin and (in normal attitudes)
does not interact with other airframe parts. In potential-flow solutions, there is little penalty
in using a flat vortex sheet and neglecting its roll-up. In high lift, there is separation from the
slat lip and flap edges, and thick viscous layers and vortices directly interact with the lifting
surfaces so that their correct response to inviscid and viscous (turbulent) effects becomes
crucial. The increase in grid count needed to model these features well is then much more than
the order of magnitude, which would appear justified by the geometric complexity in itself.
As a result, in contrast with the trend we mentioned for clean wings in steady flight, in
our industry even now the wind-tunnel effort devoted to the high-lift system, S&C, loads,
failure conditions, icing, and airframe noise is considerable. Altogether, such testing takes of
the order of one-year round-the-clock occupancy for a new wing, including its high-lift and
control systems. This reflects the countless combinations of configurations and attitudes, of
course, but it also reveals the relative weakness of CFD when dealing with the full complexity
of an aircraft. This weakness includes accuracy concerns and turnaround time. The flow
physics are considerably more complex with viscous effects being dominant (interactions
amongst multiple boundary layers, shear layers, wakes, and sometimes shocks). As a rule,
the flow is almost always separated in some regions and most nettlesome of all, the flows
are characterised by smooth-body separation. The geometric complexity is high requiring
upwards of 50-100 m grid points for a fixed grid in current practice. Even such grid counts
are far from allowing precise resolution of the many shear layers and vortices that dominate
the flow field and whose positions are not known in advance. As of today, both lack of
grid resolution and physical modelling errors appear to be limiting factors, of comparable
impact. Still, CFD is used in a limited fashion in high lift to weed out configurations, obtain
force increments due to configuration changes by carefully controlling parameters such as
grid topology, and to thin out wind-tunnel test points by anchoring a few CFD solutions to
wind-tunnel data. Current practice is to use steady RANS on affordable fixed grids and apply
engineering judgment, which consists of acceptable convergence of force coefficients and
residuals as well as the use of flow visualisation techniques to determine whether the solution
is ‘trustworthy.’ Solution adaptation is clearly needed to capture more of the flow physics and
still keep the problem sizes manageable. The issues associated with physical modelling are
covered in the Accuracy of Physical Modelling section, while the particular numerical issues
germane to high lift are covered in the Accuracy of Numerical Solution section.
Another rapidly growing and similar area of application is active flow control, made very
challenging numerically by the very small length and time scales of the actuators, compared
with those of the full airframe, and physically by the intense three-dimensional turbulence
involved, for which RANS modelling is questionable. CFD is of course coordinated with
wind-tunnel and flight tests.
2.3 Internal flows

CFD is heavily used in internal flows, which are not unique to the aerospace field. The
geometries here tend to be very complex (e.g., thrust reversers) made up of hundreds or even
thousands of surfaces. Grid generation of such complex geometries is a tedious task, and
the chances that every important region is well resolved are slim. Internal flows also tend to
feature special boundary conditions, such as mass flux matching, bleed boundary conditions,
radiation boundary conditions etc. Multiple chemically reacting species are also modelled.
Other uses of CFD are in Environmental Control Systems (ECS) where cabins are modelled
for improving passenger comfort in terms of air temperature, draft, and noise, and to study
the effects of pollutants. The ECS duct systems are very complex, and CFD is only slowly
moving towards a complete treatment of them. The priorities include a good distribution of
the air flow, and low noise. Another use of CFD is in the area of fire suppression where fuel
tanks and spaces such as engine nacelles and APU housings are modelled. Many of these
applications also deal with multi-phase flows.
2.4 S&C, loads, and load alleviation

S&C applications add a moderate amount of difficulty to the accurate simulation of the flow,
at least for normal control-surface deflections and flight attitudes, but they add a considerable
amount of volume to the database needed. Even approximating the flow as steady is not
always correct. In some cases, coupling with control systems is necessary. A classic and
benign example is the yaw damper, but modern Flight Management Computers (FMC) are
far more complex, and operate on shorter time scales. This is the case for commercial aircraft,
and of course even much more for fighter planes with relaxed static stability. Modern, light
airframes are also visibly more flexible than older ones, which brings their natural frequencies
close to the frequencies of the FMC and human pilot, of the order of a few hertz, and
creates new possibilities for detrimental interactions such as aircraft-pilot coupling. Some
models have Maneuver Load Alleviation (MLA), which is a prime example of coupling
between aerodynamics and systems with crucial implications to the integrity of the aircraft.
A comprehensive simulation approach to MLA based on unsteady CFD tightly coupled with
control laws is not available, and we would not expect it to be until at least 2020. Gust load
alleviation is also of value for passenger comfort. Outboard aileron reversal is an old problem,
but as present as ever, and differences on lateral control systems (aileron types) by different
companies suggest that the optimal solution may not have been found even for completely
new wings.
The calculation of loads on every part of the aircraft in every configuration and flight
condition is a very large task, and there is great value in high-accuracy predictions early
in a program, in order to size the structure and anticipate the exact mass of the aircraft. In
recent programs, CFD has by no means been the sole source of that information, partly for
reasons of confidence but primarily because of the size of the database. In this domain, the
competitive pressures leave little room for conservatism, but errors are very damaging. This
would be true even if the error concerned the sizing of an aileron actuator, for example. As
a result, the industry is increasing its reliance on CFD prudently, collecting all the possible
lessons from each new program.
A fascinating example of S&C progress is the provision of an ‘electronic tail skid’ to
prevent tail strikes on commercial aircrafts during takeoff or landing. Just like the flare
manoeuvre mentioned above, it involves rapidly changing attitudes, ground effect, high-lift
systems, control surfaces, and the FMC in a quite complex manner. Again, we expect CFD to
be an integral part of its prediction, but not to be the sole source of data for years.
2.5 Noise and vibrations

The contributions of CFD to noise prediction, whether community or cabin noise, lag far
behind its contributions to aerodynamics, and at best this is a nascent field. However, there is
deep potential, especially as we enter the LES era. Numerous methods have been proposed to
use Reynolds-averaged turbulence quantities such as turbulent kinetic energy k and dissipation
rate ɛ to build noise-source models, but in our opinion they have not delivered practical
validated tools. Instead, we support an evolution towards the use of first principles, based
on unsteady simulations. These have been validated, particularly for jet noise, but almost
exclusively on simple geometries. Performing LES with high-order low-dissipation numerics
around the complex geometry of an installed jet engine with a supersonic stream remains
very difficult, even ignoring the sources of noise linked to the moving blades of the fan and
turbine. The non-uniform surrounding flow adds to the difficulty when it comes to predicting
far-field noise radiation. However, the research studies on simple geometries proved that LES,
combined with noise-radiation post-processing of the Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings type,
accurately captures the effects of dual streams, temperature and Mach-number variations,
and shock cells. Airframe noise predictions, for instance from landing gear, are not as well
validated, partly because of the difficulties in closing the integration surfaces downstream.
Controversies over low-Mach-number and similar approximations linger. However, both for
landing gear and high-lift devices, LES is quite successful at reproducing the turbulence itself
and in particular, the wall pressure fluctuations(15) . Its potential is certain.
An intermediate application is to shock cells, which are important to cabin noise; in that
case, accurate enough CFD of the installed engine is a tool to obtain the shock-cell pattern and
strength, which can be used qualitatively or empirically to predict the noise. Still, the accurate
prediction of a long train of shock cells in cruise flight is very challenging in terms of grid
quality and solver performance, and in addition, the RANS turbulence models disturb the flow
field and are not well understood in this arena as of now. Another area of partial success is in
using CFD to reduce flow separation, which is known to create noise. However, the prediction
of the noise effect itself is still qualitative as of today. For instance, since 2004 the Boeing 737
has carried pairs of small vortex generators, easy to identify on its nose while waiting at the
airport, intended to reduce separation at the base of the windshield. They were designed by
CFD and no aerodynamic tests were conducted, but the noise reduction at the pilot’s ear was
measured in flight(16) .
Vibrations and sonic fatigue are also obvious candidates for unsteady simulations. There
are frequent applications to poorly streamlined components such as temperature probes,
drains, or windshield wipers, and also to appendages such as turrets on military derivatives
of commercial aircrafts, or blisters over antennas on commercial planes. Cavities needed
for landing gear or ordnance have been a widespread and often successful application. The
simulations may be of unsteady RANS type, in which case there is not firm guarantee that
the simulation will correctly predict the onset of unsteadiness, particularly if the appendage
is somewhat streamlined, or is immersed in the boundary layer. Simulations of detached-eddy
simulation (DES) type are always unsteady, and have been highly successful for instance
around tandem cylinders for research and around many aircraft components we cannot
describe here; however, they are more expensive and demanding of user skill. Industrial use
will grow with the rise in computing power and the development of best practices.
3.0 PRINCIPAL CHALLENGES TO QUALITY AND

RELIABILITY IN CFD
As engineers, we have knowledge of the progression of CFD at The Boeing Company
and a sense of its bright future. As developers on the flow physics and the numerical
sides, we are keenly aware of its imperfections and heavily invested in limiting the dangers
of overconfidence and simplifications, as well as planning and applying research and
development efforts in the most effective manner.
3.1 Accuracy of geometry

Geometry is obviously one of the essential inputs to CFD and is probably one of the most
difficult aspects in the entire CFD process. Defining geometry for manufacturing is hard
enough (e.g., using Computer Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA)),
but in CFD what is desired is as simple as possible a definition of the geometry that can be
analysed aerodynamically. When the geometry is imported from external sources, the number
of surfaces could be in the thousands. The geometry may contain gaps, multiple definitions,
intersecting surfaces etc. that have to be resolved unambiguously and uniquely. In the context
of fixed grids, it is possible to make such decisions on the fly during grid generation. There are
programs available that try to automate much of this but still require tolerance specifications
that may have to be varied depending on the geometries. The problem of clean geometry
specification is more pressing and delicate when adaptive gridding techniques are employed.
Gaps that were resolved during grid generation are unacceptable, as are trimmed curves that
possess different parametric representations on two intersecting surfaces. This problem is
currently being addressed by using surrogate geometries (e.g., piecewise linear geometry
definition) in the vicinities of gaps and intersections.
3.2 Surface and volume gridding

When a clean geometry is finally created, surface gridding (sometimes also called paneling) is
the next task. Surface gridding takes into account the curvature of the surfaces using measures
such as chord-height and chord-height/chord, smooth variations of the surface grid, desired
spacings in regions of great solution variation (wing trailing edges, leading edges, nacelle lips
etc.). Every surface grid generator uses its own set of rules. Clustering of surface grid points
near singularities (e.g., trailing edges) is considered important but there is no accepted set
of rules to accomplish it. Surface gridding in such areas also has a profound impact on the
volume grid. In principle, the rules for generating surface grids should not matter because as
part of grid refinement, the surface will also get refined. In practice, however, highly irregular
grids present challenges to many of the flow solvers. So, much time is spent in creating
smooth, graded meshes. It should be noted, however, that grid refinement is seldom done.
And even if done, uniform grid refinement is inadequate. Therefore, we believe surface grid
generation is another source of error in CFD simulations that should be better controlled. For
most CFD codes possessing second-order accuracy, linear or bilinear representation of surface
grid will suffice. However, when higher-order methods are used for discretising the flow
equations, the surface grids also need to have similar higher-order properties to approximate
general curved geometries.
Once a surface grid has been created, a number of grid-generation techniques can be used
for the volume grid. Some of the choices are multi-block structured grids employing elliptic
or hyperbolic techniques, overset methods that generate simple grids around components with
overset regions, unstructured grids using advancing front and/or Delaunay tetrahedralisation
techniques, oct-tree grids, or a combination of all these techniques. Typically, for turbulent
simulations, one can estimate the initial normal spacing based on the spacing in viscous
wall units y+ , which can be estimated based on the flow conditions. Geometric stretching
is employed in the normal direction and is a key parameter (typically 1.1-1.3). In particular,
contrary to common expectations, reducing the first y+ and holding the stretching ratio the
same does not refine the grid away from the wall by the same proportion; far from it. Few users
of CFD understand this. Wakes are resolved to a degree by choosing the ‘right’ grid topology
(e.g., C-mesh) or in some instances wake sheets are prescribed as additional ‘surfaces’ to
concentrate the grid points. It should be mentioned that most of the flow features, such as
wakes, shear layers, and shocks are seldom known in advance, which again underscores
the value of adaptation. Grid adaptation for turbulence-resolving approaches such as DES
brings additional challenges, starting with the choice between static adaptation and time-
dependent adaptation. This is already the case for URANS studies; for instance, in a buffet
simulation, the shock wave has a range of positions during a cycle. The expectation is that
with grid refinement, such features will get better resolved along with using smaller geometric
stretching factor in the normal direction. However, non-adaptive refinement is very expensive,
especially in three dimensions.
3.3 Accuracy of numerical solution

There are many sources of error associated with numerics in CFD even after an appropriate
physical model is chosen. Issues related to improving the robustness of CFD codes are
discussed in depth in Refs 17 and 18. Here, we merely touch upon a couple of major issues that
we see as most important. Ideally when numerical results are presented they should be a close
approximation to the solution of the set of continuous PDEs, at least in the near field. Limiting
ourselves to steady problems, the sources of error are iteration or convergence error and dis-
cretisation error (associated with the use of a finite grid). Considering that problems of ever-
increasing complexity are being solved, it is lamentable that an often-asked question is simply,
‘Is the solution converged?’ The answer varies widely across codes and flow conditions, and
is seldom satisfactory. Much effort is spent on deriving criteria for declaring convergence of
CFD codes (e.g., five orders of reduction in residual norm for steady-state calculations and/or
0.1% change in force coefficients). However, even such arbitrary criteria are seldom met,
especially at difficult flow conditions. Turbulence model equations are notoriously difficult to
solve because of stiff source terms. Their convergence usually leaves a lot to be desired. There
are no consistent measures for measuring and gauging convergence across CFD codes either.
For unsteady flows, when implicit methods are used, a source of error is also the degree to
which the non-linear system is solved at each time step. Based on work done in stiff-ODE
(Ordinary Differential Equation) solvers, it may be possible to bound such errors.
The other main source of error is related to the use of a finite grid. Grid resolution
studies should be and have been performed to reduce the discretisation errors, obtain grid-
converged results, and increase confidence in CFD solutions. Such studies are seldom done
except for benchmark test cases (AIAA DPW 1–5(13) , high-lift prediction workshops 1 and
2(8) ). Many of these studies are still inconclusive in some respects, partly because they have
amounted to uniform refinement starting with the initial grid, which may not be the best route.
Mavriplis(19) shows that despite obtaining what could be considered grid convergence, the
answers changed substantially with a different sequence of uniformly refined grids. A recent
paper by Diskin et al(20) concludes that even in two dimensions, the only practical way to
establish grid convergence for meaningful geometries is through the use of solution-adaptive
grids. Obvious reasons for this are the presence of shock waves and geometry singularities
such as trailing edges. We agree with this sobering conclusion and hope that grid-converged
solutions using adaptive gridding will be demonstrated for drag prediction, high-lift and
propulsion workshop test cases in the near future. Adaptive gridding technology has been
developed for full-potential flow (TRANAIR(21) ), Euler equations (CART3D(22) ), and two-
dimensional RANS(18,23) . The codes cited above use solution-adaptive gridding as a matter
of course to compute CFD solutions and can be considered to represent the state of the art.
For three-dimensional RANS, adaptive gridding has not become routine by any standard and
Figure 3. Lift coefficient of multiple solutions obtained for the trapezoidal wing. Black lines are
experiments. Left, 3(a): results from single code on the same grid; dashed lines are CFD. Right, 3(b):
colour-coded results from four different codes, one of them with two turbulence models.
(Courtesy of D. Young.)
is an active research topic. Until adaptive gridding does become routine, the authors feel that
providing results on two grids, one of which is a uniform refinement (say by a factor of 1.5-2
in each direction) of the other grid would go a long way in increasing confidence in CFD
results, by weeding out poor solutions.
3.4 Multiple solutions

Another serious issue that has been uncovered recently has to do with multiple steady solutions
in CFD(24) . Given the flow conditions, several residual-converged (to machine zero) solutions
could be obtained depending on the path taken to obtain convergence; for instance, a start from
freestream conditions versus a start from a solution at a lower angle-of-attack (note that this
procedure is unphysical, and does not amount to reality in the wind tunnel). This is exhibited
in Fig. 3(a), in which a single grid of intermediate density, namely 11m nodes, was used. Finer
grids were not found to have as many solution branches, but it is not known whether that is a
definite trend, or simply due to the exploration of the solution space not being as extensive on
finer and therefore more expensive grids. A recent and important finding shown in Fig. 3(b)
is that at least the upper and one lower branch have now been confirmed by other codes with
very different grid systems (including structured and unstructured) and algorithms, including
the fact that the width of the branches is much larger than the width of wind-tunnel hysteresis
loops obtained with slow increases and decreases of the angle-of-attack (this figure includes
unpublished work by J Bussoletti, D Williams, and D Kamenetskiy at Boeing). Multiple
solutions have been encountered in a range of situations, from simple extruded wings to
complex high-lift configurations, and seem to be almost always associated with smooth-body
separation (although transonic multiple solutions are not unheard of e.g. Ref. 11).
Mathematically speaking, the existence of multiple solutions for a non-linear system of
equations is well known. Additional causes for this include the far-field boundary conditions,
which are approximate and provide an unlimited supply of energy, and the presence of
turbulence models. These models are ‘creations of the mind’ aimed at working solutions for
the system of Reynolds-averaged equations, which itself is incomplete and physically can be
viewed as quite artificial(25) . There are few if any known mathematical facts about uniqueness
(for instance, entropy principles), or even stability; it is easy to create a plausible model that
has immediate Hadamard singularities, even by only altering the value of a constant. The
models in common use have demonstrated their robustness in practice, and the full agreement
between different CFD codes using them is reassuring even as it has been secured only for
a small class of ‘academic’ cases. As a result, we do not view the turbulence models as the
primary cause of non-uniqueness, and venture that laminar problems could encounter similar
phenomena.
In reality, hysteresis is a physical phenomenon that features multiple possible states
typically in a wind tunnel, for the same controlled conditions. The multiple solutions observed
in Ref. 24, however, occur over too wide a range of angle-of-attack to correspond to the exper-
imental observations to a convincing degree, and we believe some of them are purely numer-
ical. The difficulty that confronts CFD is somewhat existential: Even if one obtains a residual-
converged solution, to what extent does it reflect reality? Efforts are under way to uncover
the various solutions by systematic means such as deflation(26) . It is also possible to analyse
the stability of the obtained solutions under time evolution. A silver lining may be that with
grid refinement (perhaps solution adaptive) most of the spurious solutions will cease to exist,
leaving only one or two solutions that are physical, or ‘more physical’ in the sense of being
affected only by turbulence-modelling errors. This is hinted at in the results shown in Ref. 24.
3.5 Slowing growth of computing power

CFD has benefited tremendously from the explosive growth in computing power over the
last 30 years or so. Simulations that required supercomputers such as a Cray YMP in the
1980s can now routinely be carried out on laptops at a fraction of the cost. CFD has also
benefited considerably from algorithmic improvements, such as algebraic multi-grid and pre-
conditioned Krylov methods. Most of the algorithms are able to exploit parallelism available
in present-day distributed-memory parallel computers through domain decomposition. MPI
and to a lesser degree OpenMP are programming models that are used to exploit such
architectures, with some success. The challenge for CFD is how to adapt to newly emerging
architectures such as coprocessors and GPGPUs(27) . It is fair to say that apart from a few
simple algorithms that have been implemented on these more difficult architectures, much
of the CFD community is adopting a wait-and-see attitude. The accepted rate of growth
for a single chip has long been Moore’s law, or roughly a factor of 2 every two years (if
not 18 months). The rate of growth of the fastest supercomputer has been much faster, of
the order of a factor 3.8 every two years, due to the increase in the number of chips, and
therefore cost and electrical power. CFD has benefited from this to a considerable degree. Past
projections for the treatment of turbulence by DNS and LES have relied on Moore’s law(28) .
However, Moore’s law encountered an apparent ceiling for chips around 2012. In terms of
supercomputers, the Tianhe-2 machine, which has held the worldwide top position since 2013,
is rated at 30 petaflops, and the recent U.S. initiative aims at the exaflop speed in 2025. The
ratio between the two represents a factor of only 1.8 every 2 years, which is 57% slower
than the factor of 3.8. In addition, the full success of the initiative is not granted, considering
the issues of cost and electrical power, and by some estimates, the future machine may be
used only at an efficiency of a few percentage points. In other words, it may achieve exaflop
performance for LINPACK cases, but be far below that in CFD practice. This is barring a
breakthrough, of course, originating in quantum computing or another concept. The marked
weakening of the computing-power rate of rise is likely to be durable, and to disappoint the
common expectations of ‘free’ progress in CFD.
3.6 Accuracy of physical modelling

The ubiquitous challenge in transportation CFD is turbulence, with transition equally
challenging but in question only in relatively small regions and in special applications. The
treatment of turbulence has been vexing for a century and will not be a ‘solved problem’
for decades. Progress will be dependent on new ideas and their correct implementation, and
on computing power. To illustrate the wide range of turbulence problems, as of 2010 DNS,
which is a treatment purely from first principles of a non-rotating golf ball, was possible
with about 1 Bn grid points and more than 100 grid points per dimple diameter, and gave
‘reasonable agreement with measurements’ in these authors’ own prudent assessment(29) ; note
that the experimental measurements had a 20% spread. We suspect DNS is now definitely
accurate even with rotation, the companies engaged in it not making their results public, and
that DNS will actually lead to better dimple designs. However, if we stay with sports, DNS
of even a tennis ball is not possible, if only because of the hair on it, which could not be
resolved numerically. Treating it requires a model of rough-wall turbulence, and therefore
empiricism. At the other end of the scale of flows of interest, there would be great value
in predicting hurricanes days in advance, and the Reynolds numbers there far exceed even
those in aerospace systems. Again, these simulations are dependent on modelling physics
empirically on a relatively very small scale; for instance, the interaction of wind and water
waves (P G Sullivan, personal communication 2015).
Progress in RANS modelling has not been rapid, and in some cases a rigorous validation has
been hampered by a proliferation of versions of each model. This issue has been addressed,
although not yet for a large enough number of models at the time of writing, by the excellent
NASA turbulence-modelling resource(30) . The site provides both definitive formulations and
a nomenclature for all model versions, and grid-converged solutions for a variety of canonical
flows. The range of cases is gradually expanding.
To set the stage in our industry, we may consider the problem of calculating the flare and
landing maneuver of an airliner, therefore a configuration with high-lift devices, landing gear,
spoilers, moving control surfaces, ground effect, thrust reversers, and unsteadiness lasting
many seconds. Curiously, with computing power gradually rising from current levels to
infinity, the criticality of turbulence modelling within CFD is likely to rise, and ultimately
fall. The computing power is, further, likely to dictate the type of physical modelling that is
optimal at a particular time. More specifically, as of today a solution for this landing maneuver
that is accurate to the degree needed in our industry is out of reach even with the least costly
type of turbulence modelling, namely, RANS. Therefore, it is arguable that physical modelling
is not the dominant source of error. With power in the exaflop range and beyond, and effective
grid-adaptation systems, the numerical errors will subside, so that physical modelling will
stand out as the source of error; we do not expect this to be the case until the mid-2020s.
Predictions beyond that time are not as easy, but are not impossible either.
It is conceivable that computing power will someday make DNS in aeronautics possible, so
that modelling proper would disappear, and the turbulence considerations would be reduced to
ensuring that the grid and time resolution are adequate. In 2000, one of us boldly anticipated
this to happen around 2080(28) , but by now we are not confident of this for the 21st century, or
even that it will ever happen. The reason is that, without being experts in computer hardware,
as mentioned above we believe Moore’s law is clearly weakening, and fail to see where the
Figure 4. Contours of the quantity 1/δ2 on a wing at flight Reynolds

number, with fully turbulent boundary layer. (Courtesy of M. Strelets.)
other 20 or so orders of magnitude (doubling every two years from now until 2080, as had
to be assumed) will come from. The expression ‘post Moore’s law era’ is in use in high-
performance computing circles. Naturally, the present considerations ignore the chance of a
major breakthrough; for instance, through quantum, biological, or other radically different
type of computing.
Turning to the type of turbulence treatment, of course RANS and DNS are not the only
options, and LES has great potential, although methods which soundly combine elements of
RANS and of LES have even more and earlier potential. The world of hybrid RANS-LES
methods calls for a fairly complex taxonomy. ‘Pure RANS’ and ‘pure LES’ are quite clear
in terms of the equations that are solved. This is although pure RANS can produce unsteady
and even chaotic solutions for massive separation, which is generally favorable for accuracy,
but difficult to control. Pure LES we define as a method that requires no modelling akin to
RANS, and in particular does not depend on specifying the value of the Karman constant
κ; this is also called wall-resolved LES, or quasi-DNS, and it will not become possible
long before DNS does. Much more practical is Wall-Modelled LES (WMLES), in which the
lower part of the boundary layer contains modelling of very numerous eddies such as streaks,
implicitly contained in each grid cell. This modelling acquires a RANS nature, and implies a
value for κ, which we find to be a simple test of whether ‘turbulence modelling’ is involved.
This gives access to arbitrary Reynolds numbers and is bearable, considering that κ and the
associated log law are the best-established facts of turbulence. In WMLES, the upper part
of the boundary layer relies on LES, with of course adequate grid resolution. Our prediction
in 2000 that LES would prevail in the 2045 time frame assumed wall modelling, and a few
other generous assumptions(28) . Therefore, we have no reason to make any more optimistic
predictions, especially in this post-Moore’s law era, and progress in RANS modelling remains
a high priority.
Figure 4 is key to the realities of WMLES, which are worth reiterating, because wishful
thinking is all too common in this area. In such a method, with fully successful wall modelling,
the number of grid points per cube of boundary layer, of size δ, is nearly independent of
Reynolds number. As a result, the cost per unit area is proportional to 1/δ2 , and this quantity
is shown on a wing at flight Reynolds numbers (work of Dr M Strelets, 2015). It is striking
how the (red) band that straddles the attachment line of the swept wing dominates the cost
of the entire WMLES. If we count roughly 323 points per boundary-layer cube, each square
centimetre in this band is costing close to 100,000 points. For both wings the integral of
1/δ2 , in other words the number of cubes needed to fill the boundary layer, is roughly
Figure 5. RANS followed by wall-modelled LES of a shock-boundary-layer interaction. Numerical

schlieren visualisation. The switch from RANS to LES occurs at x/c = −0.48. (Courtesy of M. Strelets.)
Ncubes = 4×106 , leading to 1011 points as already pointed out in 1997(31) ; for a high-lift
configuration, the numbers would roughly triple. The number of time steps from a ‘cold start’
would be in the millions(31) ; pure LES does not enjoy any acceleration to steady state, the
way steady solvers do. This is why RANS is the only option in that band. However, what is
also striking is how rapidly the quantity 1/δ2 falls away from the attachment line (notice the
exponential spacing of the contour levels). The consequence is that switching from RANS
to WMLES in the boundary layer becomes manageable fairly rapidly, and this is why we
contend that this will be the turbulence treatment of choice in the foreseeable future. If we
rule out a major breakthrough in accuracy in RANS modelling for sensitive regions such as
shock-boundary-layer interactions(25) the recourse to LES is necessary not only for massive
separation, as was argued when creating DES(28) , but also for boundary layers in severe
pressure gradients and other non-trivial perturbations. Fortunately, the region with very high
1/δ2 is also a region with favourable pressure gradient, which is precisely what keeps the
boundary layer so thin, and such regions are easy to predict for RANS. This suggests a zonal
treatment. Now the switch from RANS to WMLES is not trivial, technically. It requires a
large reduction in the grid spacing from ‘RANS spacing’ to ‘LES spacing,’ and the artificial
generation of three-dimensional unsteady ‘LES content.’ This is a very active research field,
for good reasons. The engineering CFD method of this type will proceed through preliminary
RANS solutions, followed by the automatic selection of RANS and LES regions, appropriate
grid generation with a strong dependence on δ, and arrangement of the synthetic turbulence
generator. These generators are not perfect, and the simulation will have a narrow adjustment
band in which the skin friction will be inaccurate, but not enough to have a global impact,
especially if the pressure gradient is still favourable. As computing power rises, the RANS-
LES boundary will move towards the attachment line. The substitution of LES for RANS will
consist in a boundary between the two approaches moving forward, rather than being sudden.
Figure 5 displays the beauty of such a hybrid simulation in a boundary layer, in a research
case. The attached boundary layer has been seeded with LES content and encounters a shock,
which causes separation with a λ pattern. This type of simulation has proven to be far more
accurate and reliable than any RANS model. However, this did not happen with resolutions
such as 323 in each boundary-layer cube; the one in Fig. 4 used 2 Bn points total, and the
number of points per cube just ahead of the shock was about 106 (which is 30 times larger
than 323 ).
We now summarise our predictions for turbulence treatment at the Reynolds numbers of
interest. DNS and wall-resolved LES will not be used. Pure RANS cannot be fully eliminated
(and is far superior to LES with a skeletal resolution such as 33 per δ cube), but is not to be
trusted after massive separation, and ultimately not even in boundary layers in strong adverse
pressure gradients. The switch from RANS to WMLES will not happen globally, but instead,
hybrid simulations will see the boundary move forward to gradually shrink the RANS region,
reducing it to the thinnest areas of boundary layers, which are the least difficult to predict
but cannot be ignored. The laminar regions will be treated with ‘RANS grid spacing’ and a
choice of transition-prediction approach; this is another very active research area, which we
do not delve into here. The complete turbulence treatment will be quite complex with several
steps and fully integrated with the grid design; this complexity is unfortunate and aesthetically
unappealing, but this approach is the only one with the ultimate potential to face the hurdle of
turbulence in our industry.
3.7 Integration with other disciplines

Structural mechanics is a major discipline that interacts with CFD because we are dealing
with flexible structures such as aircraft wings, control surfaces, and fan blades. Recall
that geometry is an essential input to CFD. Thus, when dealing with flexible structures,
there is no recourse other than to couple CFD with a structural model. The fidelity of
the structural model could range from simple approximations such as beam model (early
in the design phase of an aircraft) to a sophisticated finite element model. Fluid-Structure
Interaction (FSI) is fast becoming an important area with many applications. Typically, for
static situations, aerostructural coupling is done in a loose fashion and converges in just a few
iterations. Dynamic load predictions (including flutter boundary calculations) also call for
time-dependent or time-harmonic CFD analysis to be coupled with a structural module(32) .
CFD can interact with 6-DOF models to determine trajectories (e.g., of missiles or aircrafts in
stall/spin). CFD can also be used to compute dynamic derivatives(33) ; it then becomes possible
to couple with control laws and carry out aircraft manoeuvres.
At a deeper level, CFD and structures need to be integrated because the aerodynamic forces
size the structure and influence the mass of the aircraft, and therefore its cost and its value. In
addition, the critical conditions are at the edge of the flight envelope, and therefore probably
more difficult to predict physically. A prime example of this difficulty is the slope of the lift
curve of each section of a transonic wing at higher angles of attack and Mach numbers.
Unsteady CFD, using DES or LES approaches, is tentatively used to predict vibrations
and noise. This is tentative, first, because the detection of unsteadiness via CFD is not error-
proof. For instance, buffet remains a challenging field, but one with great impact, whether
it is high-speed wing buffet or low-speed flap buffet. These are phenomena with a rather
narrow frequency range. CFD has also helped with the noise of small components such as
temperature probes. Broadband noise adds the cost of resolving, in the time domain, a very
large number of cycles. An example is jet-flap interaction. The propagation of noise adds
to the difficulty. Propagation to the fuselage demands a large volume of fine grid, followed
by careful coupling with structural equations, ultimately leading to cabin noise. Community-
noise prediction is perforce done by post-processing the unsteady simulation with a far-field
propagation approach; these approaches remain very delicate, especially in non-uniform flow
fields with boundaries, and marked by controversies particularly over the role of quadrupoles
in the acoustic analogy.
Another major discipline that interacts with CFD is icing. Given the flow-field information
from CFD, sophisticated icing models (e.g., Ref. 34) are used to generate ice shapes and the
new geometries are analysed in CFD. These models account for surface roughness, phase
change, runback, and other factors affecting ice accretion. Grid generation of configurations
with ice is a non-trivial task because the ice shapes are complex, and separation off the ice
horn is likely. For some types of icing, a treatment as a rough surface, entering the turbulence
model, is preferable.
As of now, most multi-disciplinary analyses are carried out by cycling through the solvers
of the various disciplines involved in a loosely coupled fashion. This is a sequential algorithm
with parallelism (as it exists) exploited only within each discipline. The approach can be
characterised as a non-linear Gauss-Seidel algorithm and is not guaranteed to converge.
The loosely coupled approach still has some advantages. It is relatively easy to build the
infrastructure, it requires minimal exchange of information at each iteration, and leaves the
discipline-specific solvers unaltered. On the other hand, a strongly coupled approach, based on
a damped Newton method, is guaranteed to converge. This approach also exploits parallelism
across the various disciplines permitting them to be solved concurrently. The strongly coupled
approach is daunting in terms of problem formulation and creation of an analysis framework;
it also requires far greater computer resources.
4.0 USER AWARENESS AND EDUCATION

4.1 Current practices and concerns
The quality of CFD answers depends at least on three factors: the code, the available computer
resources (which limit the grid resolution and number of iterations), and the user. It is
unfortunately easy to misuse a code and computer (one of us was recently shown a flow field
past a complete aircraft in an engineering context, but the user had taken the silhouette of
the aircraft, and run a 2D solver!). The obvious possibilities include accepting poor iteration
convergence (in another incident, a presenter stated that the residuals had levelled off and
that it ‘indicated convergence’). This flaw in a solution is obvious since all codes provide
residual histories, but insidious under the usual work pressures; today, a very small proportion
of solutions in industrial work achieves machine-zero convergence. Independently, except in
the simpler cases, there is often poor grid convergence, which is more difficult to detect,
and surprisingly difficult to test for in a direct and simple manner with the common grid
generators and gridding strategies. The geometry may also have been simplified too much, say
by omitting slat supports, or not have been adjusted for aeroelastic effects carefully enough;
this issue is just as present in the wind tunnel, of course. Other possibilities include inadequate
treatment of transition and turbulence; in this case, adequate treatments may not even be
available, for reasons discussed at length above, and the correct response from the user is to
treat the results with scepticism, and to seek validation on similar cases. Excellent workshops
have been held, but at times they illustrate how small a region of the flight envelope we actually
master.
We recognise the time and cost pressures engineers work under, but we believe the software
could be much better at boosting the ‘situational awareness’ (an expression we borrow from
pilot evaluations) the users have of their solutions, and at improving their skills through the
practice of running CFD. Both the engineering companies and the CFD providers, whether
private or government, offer training but most users appear to spend only a few hours a year
in formal training.
A prime example of poor practice is accepting a series of iterations to steady state, in which
the residuals dropped by only a few orders of magnitude. It is common then to take the limit
cycle of the forces and moments, and average them. This is surprising to us and not justified,
primarily because the iteration steps towards steady state are non-physical, and not closely
related to time integration; in particular, they do not conserve vorticity in the inviscid regions.
In some cases, the limit cycle may concern only a small region of space, where the grid may
be especially poor, but if the forces and moments vary noticeably, it is likely that large regions
are affected. The entire solution is therefore tainted. A logical measure to resolve this is to
continue the run in time-accurate mode, but when this is suggested the users usually object
that it is not affordable (in addition, spurious vorticity created during failed iterations towards
steady state could be distributed over a large region, making it difficult to evacuate). This
suggests effort would be well spent on the performance of codes in time-accurate mode, which
is very uneven in our experience. There is no guarantee that the limit cycle of unsteady RANS
is perfect, but at least the inviscid physics are correct, and the turbulent physics addressed
in the best way possible inside the RANS framework. In that respect, we note that no code
should be dependent on only one turbulence model, and that all users should be familiar with
more than one model, and test the sensitivity of solutions to the model when there is a sense
that an inaccurate prediction may be caused by modelling flaws.
Regarding grid convergence, essentially all codes should use a sequence of grids. The user
should be automatically exposed to the results from the two finest of these grids, for forces
and pressure distributions. If they differ noticeably, the warning is clear. We have not seen
this done, although it is easy to arrange. The most common danger in Navier-Stokes work is
that the grid is not adequate to capture the turbulent regions, including boundary layers, shear
layers, and vortices. In particular, the sufficient grid depends on the angle-of-attack, which
is rarely achieved except with automatic adaptation. Presently, almost all users run an entire
polar on the same grid, a practice which would be adequate only with an ‘overkill’ of grid
density.
Another support for awareness of physics and a tool for design will be available if and when
a rigorous definition of induced drag, wave drag, and parasitic drag from viscous flow fields
is established. These concepts are constantly used by designers, but only for clean wings. The
extension of lifting-line theory is a fascinating and stubborn problem (even once a theory is
created, it could be defeated by grid coarsening in the wake). Success in this domain could
temper the erosion of classical aerodynamic knowledge in the younger generations.
4.2 Flow visualisation and other interface possibilities

Flow visualisation is also very helpful in some situations, and again should be provided
automatically. Pressure, skin friction, turbulence index, first wall spacing in wall units y+ ,
and surface streamlines giving good coverage without the user setting starting points should
be available with no effort. Views of the vortical turbulent regions in the field should be
easy to obtain, marked by vorticity, the Q criterion, or even eddy viscosity. We know that
providing this is made more difficult by massively parallel computer architectures. However,
the frontier for the expanded and accurate use of CFD is precisely in cases for which viscous
effects become pivotal, and the user’s judgment of the physical and numerical soundness of
the solution should be nurtured with intent. When the message from visualisation and other
indicators is negative, the appropriate response will range from simply declaring that CFD is
not ready for this particular flow, to refining the grid, to switching from a steady to an unsteady
RANS formulation, to using a hybrid RANS-LES approach such as DES. DES would be
helpful for massively separated cases, or any which require detailed unsteady information
such as noise and vibration.
In the longer term, virtual reality and similar systems beyond the simple two-dimensional
screen will be considered. Without turning CFD into too much of a source of entertainment,
feeling the surface with one’s fingers, with its pressure fluctuations and vibrations, the flow
speed and direction and the turbulence, will be a resource when solving design problems
such as separation, vortex breakdown, and buffet. The user will select a component such as
flap by voice, and reach through the other ones to touch it; he/she will hold the component,
say a landing-gear door, by hand and feel the (unsteady) force and moment on it. This idea
is not ours, since Boeing’s history of the B-47 wind-tunnel tests of the 1940s and the now-
common underslung nacelle concept mentions that ‘the concept was tested in the Boeing
wind tunnel by mounting model engine nacelles on the end of a pole (the ‘broomstick’ test)
and moving the nacelles around the wing until the optimal position was discovered – forward
and below the wing.’ Even moving a point by hand with a ‘three-dimensional mouse’ when
exploring the flow field would empower the user when looking at a screen; the equivalent of
a smoke wand would be provided. In propulsion applications, the local temperature is very
valuable; for noise studies, the user will have instant aural access to noise anywhere in the
field. We understand that the storage implications of this type of communication are very
large. However, the current displays of isosurfaces or contours remind us of Plato’s cave, and
in addition they are supplied in slow motion.
The ‘experience’ will, further, direct attention to regions of weakened accuracy, either due
to ‘bad cells,’ or marginal grid density possibly detected by comparing the best two grids,
or of degraded confidence in the transition/turbulence treatment. Colour will show regions
with marginal separation, or values of the n factor (used in transition prediction) close to
critical. Again, the idea is to educate the users continuously about numerics and physics and
to illustrate how, when used at the frontiers, CFD is not a black box. As well as showing rich
information contained in the solution, the interface will issue gentle reminders of the ‘ethics
of CFD.’
In a more abstract exercise, the user will ‘travel’ the flight envelope for each flap setting,
with a choice of independent variables including speed, altitude, mass and centre of mass,
g factor, and so on. The buffet or stall boundary may be revealed by a buzzer or ‘stick
shaker.’ Naturally, one day CFD will be directly driving real-time flight simulators, and real
stick shakers will obviously be involved. The boundary of the envelope of high-confidence
predictions will also be indicated, and in particular, conditions that permit multiple solutions
to the equations will be clearly indicated. The existence of multiple solutions has been strongly
established and usually blamed on the sensitivity of smooth-body separation(24) , but reliably
extracting them will be a very delicate problem.
5.0 CONCLUSIONS
The widely expected substitution of CFD for the vast majority of ground and flight testing
in the aerospace and similar industries, although announced in the 1970s, will take decades
from today to complete, gradually expanding from the center to the edges of the operational
envelope, from isolation to complete collaboration with other disciplines, and from innocuous
to safety-critical decisions. We believe that the recent marked weakening in the rate of increase
of computer power is durable and linked to the laws of quantum physics, but cannot exclude
the possibility of a revolution in hardware design. This substitution by CFD will contribute
somewhat to addressing the perennial concern that aircraft and similar programs take much
too long and cost too much. It can also reduce industrial and schedule risk. Another benefit of
CFD is the increasing power to approach true global optima in aerospace design, breaking
down the stubborn barriers between disciplines. The challenges in physical modelling of
transition and turbulence will not be truly overcome in this century, if ever. The solver and
grid-adaptation issues are still resilient in spite of the talent and effort applied worldwide, but
we see no option other than addressing them squarely. A substantial advantage of CFD will
be that, with higher accuracy standards and more flexible airframes, wind-tunnel testing will
greatly suffer from the impossibility to reproduce the shape of the loaded wing or blade over
enough conditions.
We perceive a danger of overconfidence and under-competence in CFD. There are many
ways to produce bad CFD, from careless attitudes, to serious inattention to numerics issues
and convergence, to being unaware of the mysterious failings and fallacies of turbulence
modelling. These are not highlighted by the providers of CFD capabilities, at least not in the
packaging of the product, although some of these entities have discussed failures and partial
successes openly in scientific papers. We do not doubt that mistakes are made and will be in
the future, and we do not blame our non-CFD colleagues for their prudence in adopting CFD,
whether on the industry or regulatory side. Such mistakes occur also in physical testing, of
course. Another danger is the erosion of physical and engineering judgment in aerodynamics,
not to mention ignorance of the very equations the codes are solving and their connection to
physics. The training of users deserves more attention, and we have made proposals in that
direction. We can hope the power of CFD will not only improve the economics of conventional
aircraft, but also empower us to bring new concepts to the air, for example a supersonic
transport with acceptable fuel-burn and sonic-boom penalties. Widespread acceptance of
certification by analysis, primarily by CFD, will be a remarkable achievement and is for us
an inspiring mission.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Dinesh Naik for his painstaking review and reorganisation
of the original draft. They also acknowledge the following people for their useful comments:
Jeff Slotnick, Robert Gregg, Michael Strelets, David Young, Juan Cajigas, and Paul Johnson.
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The Aeronautical Journal January 2016 Volume 120 No 1223 209

pp 209–232. © Royal Aeronautical Society 2016

On the role and challenges of

Keywords: CFD; aerodynamics; numerical methods; turbulence modeling

2.0 PRESENT AND FUTURE ROLES OF CFD FOR

2.1 High-speed ﬂight conditions

2.2 High-lift conﬁgurations

2.3 Internal ﬂows

2.4 S&C, loads, and load alleviation

2.5 Noise and vibrations

3.0 PRINCIPAL CHALLENGES TO QUALITY AND

3.1 Accuracy of geometry

3.2 Surface and volume gridding

3.3 Accuracy of numerical solution

3.4 Multiple solutions

3.5 Slowing growth of computing power

3.6 Accuracy of physical modelling

Figure 4. Contours of the quantity 1/δ2 on a wing at flight Reynolds

Figure 5. RANS followed by wall-modelled LES of a shock-boundary-layer interaction. Numerical

3.7 Integration with other disciplines

4.0 USER AWARENESS AND EDUCATION

4.2 Flow visualisation and other interface possibilities

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