ON STEADY INCOMPRESSIBLE MULTI-ELEM'ENT I FLOW USING PANEL (BOUNDARY ELEMENT) METHODS

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to develop fast flow solvers for Steady Incolpressible Inviscid Flows. Two flow-solvers were developed for two and three-dimensiJnal flow­ fields:

Both solvers use the Boundary Element Method to obtain the surface distributions for I the velocity and pressure coefficients. For the two-dimensional case Neumann

boundary condition is applied using either a constant strength source or vortbx panels. On the other hand, the three-dimensional solver applies both Neumann and!Dirichlet boundary conditions using constant strength source or vortex panels and Iconstant

strength source and doublet panels respectively. Flat panels are used in both solvers.

Both solvers were validated against published work and very good agreeLent was obtained in most cases. Finally sample results and flow-visualizations are presJnted.. I

Both solvers are capable of solving flow-fields over arbitrary lifting and n n-lifting multi-component bodies and multi-bodies. The solvers are also coupled with an interactive graphical interface to help visualize problem data and results.

An enhancement is made to the two-dimensional flow solver to enable the simulation of separated flow over bluff-bodies, by using Discrete Vortex Methods which discrete vortices are shed from fixed prescribed separation points. Qualitati+ results are obtained.