Physics and Accuracy of Dual-Solver Simulations of Rotors in Ground Effect

To characterize the interactions between rotorcraft and ground obstacles when tackling modern and emerging problems such as shipboard landings and urban air mobility, first-principles computational models offer the ability to perform design and analytical studies while resolving detailed flow features. However, the cost of Navier–Stokes methods with very high resolution is, for the most part, only tractable for research use cases. Conversely, midfidelity potential-based methods are cost-effective but may not capture important physics that occur near the rotor blades. Hybrid approaches that couple Navier–Stokes and potential solvers have recently been developed, which provide the ability to resolve complex physics with a Navier–Stokes solution while employing a potential solver to resolve far-wake effects for which it is well-suited. This research discusses the impact of new improvements to and best practices for the hybrid Navier–Stokes/free-wake solver OVERFLOW-CHARM applied to rotors in ground effect. Predictions of rotor performance and flow features are compared with experimental data for microscale and subscale rotors. Rotor performance is predicted within 6% of a conventional computational fluid dynamics simulation at approximately 20% of the computational cost and predicted flow features correlate well to experimental flow visualization.