An article about a method to update the numerical mesh with ice profiles having title RBF-based mesh morphing approach to perform icing simulations in the aviation sector has been published on the Emerald Insight Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 91 no. 4.

Authors: C. Groth, U. Cella, E.Costa, Marco E.Biancolini 

Abstract

Numerical simulation of icing has become a standard. Once the iced shape is known, however, the analyst needs to update the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) grid.

This paper aims to propose a method to update the numerical mesh with ice profiles.

It’s concerns a novel and fast radial basis functions (RBF) mesh morphing technique to efficiently and accurately perform ice accretion simulations on industrial models in the aviation sector. This method can be linked to CFD analyses to dynamically reproduce the ice growth.

To verify the consistency of the proposed approach, one of the most challenging ice profile selected in the LEWICE manual was replicated and simulated through CFD. To showcase the effectiveness of this technique, predefined ice profiles were automatically applied on two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) cases using both commercial and open-source CFD solvers.

If ice accreted shapes are available, the meshless characteristic of the proposed approach enables its coupling with the CFD solvers currently supported by the RBF4AERO platform including OpenFOAM, SU2 and ANSYS Fluent.

The advantages provided by the use of RBF are the high performance and reliability, due to the fast application of mesh smoothing and the accuracy in controlling surface mesh nodes.