Numerical Simulation of Incompressible Flow Around an Airfoil Using the Immersed Boundary Method

The Assignment

Numerical simulations of airfoil flow fields constitute one of the most important topics in the study of computational aerodynamics. The use of structured grids to discretize such flow fields requires intricate mesh generation, especially if the geometry moves and changes shape. This drawback can be overcome using the Immersed Boundary Method, which discretizes the flow field within a static Cartesian mesh.

The scope of this thesis is to develop a 2D solver for incompressible flows employing the Immersed Boundary Method and applying it to compute flows around an airfoil. In the incompressible regime, such simulations are especially relevant for low-Mach-number applications. In the process, the airfoil will be described using Lagrangian points, whereas the surrounding flow will be modeled using finite volume/discontinuous Galerkin approaches and projection techniques for incompressibility on a Cartesian grid.

Reference solutions can be generated with FLEXI by considering the incompressible limit. If time permits, an incompressible solver may also be developed to generate reference solutions.

Your Profile

• Studies in engineering, physics, mathematics, computer science or a related field.
• Interest in computational fluid dynamics and numerical methods.
• Programming languages: Python, MATLAB or Fortran.

Application

Please send your application to: applications@nrg-group.com.

References

• Peskin, C. S. (2002). The immersed boundary method. Acta Numerica, 11, 479-517.
• Mittal, R. and Iaccarino, G. (2005). Immersed boundary methods. Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 37, 239-261.