Aerodynamic Sensitivity Analysis for Navier-Stokes Equations

Abstract

Aerodynamic sensitivity analysis codes are developed via the hand-differentiation using a direct differentiation method and an adjoint method respectively from discrete two-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations. Unlike previous other researches, Baldwin-Lomax algebraic turbulence model is also differentiated by hand to obtain design sensitivities with respect to design variables of interest in turbulent flows. Discrete direct sensitivity equations and adjoint equations are efficiently solved by the same time integration scheme adopted in the flow solver routine. The required memory for the adjoint sensitivity code is greatly reduced at the cost of the computational time by allowing the large banded flux jacobian matrix unassembled. Direct sensitivity code results are found to be exactly coincident with sensitivity derivatives obtained by the finite difference. Adjoint code results of a turbulent flow case show slight deviations from the exact results due to the limitation of the algebraic turbulence model in implementing the adjoint formulation. However, current adjoint sensitivity code yields much more accurate sensitivity derivatives than the adjoint code with the turbulence eddy viscosity being kept constant, which is a usual assumption for the prior researches.