21st Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, 13-18 September, 1998
Paper ICAS-98-R.2.2

DIRECT SIMULATION (MONTE CARLO) OF DELTA WINGS IN THREE-DIMENSIONAL, NEAR-CONTINUUM, SUBSONIC FLOWS

Talbot-Stern J. L., Auld D. J.
The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Keywords: simulation, monte carlo, delta wings, three-dimensional, near-continuum, subsonic flows

Three-dimensional simulations of subsonic flow about delta wings are performed using the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method of Bird. The position and interaction of leeward-surface vortices are investigated to benchmark the applicability and accuracy of the method at low speed in three dimensions. Using an infinitely thin delta wing the effect of angle of attack, wing vertex angle, Knudsen number and boundary conditions are investigated. The method qualitatively reproduces the delta wing vortical structure, but in a quantitative sense, the lift coefficient is lower than experimental results by a factor of two. Employed in this research is an adaptive subcell regridding scheme which significantly enhances the accuracy of the simulation.

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