Title
PyFly: A fast, portable aerodynamics simulator.
Abstract
We present a fast, user-friendly implementation of a potential flow solver based on the unsteady vortex lattice method (UVLM), namely PyFly. UVLM computes the aerodynamic loads applied on lifting surfaces while capturing the unsteady effects such as the added mass forces, the growth of bound circulation, and the wake while assuming that the flow separation location is known a priori. This method is based on discretizing the body surface into a lattice of vortex rings and relies on the Biot–Savart law to construct the velocity field at every point in the simulated domain. We introduce the pointwise approximation approach to simulate the interactions of the far-field vortices to overcome the computational burden associated with the classical implementation of UVLM. The computational framework uses the Python programming language to provide an easy to handle user interface while the computational kernels are written in Fortran. The mixed language approach enables high performance regarding solution time and great flexibility concerning easiness of code adaptation to different system configurations and applications. The computational tool predicts the unsteady aerodynamic behavior of multiple moving bodies (e.g., flapping wings, rotating blades, suspension bridges) subject to incoming air. The aerodynamic simulator can also deal with enclosure effects, multi-body interactions, and B-spline representation of body shapes. We simulate different aerodynamic problems to illustrate the usefulness and effectiveness of PyFly.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1016/j.cam.2018.03.003
Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics
Keywords
Field
DocType
Unsteady aerodynamics,Numerical simulations,Mixed-language approach,Potential flow
Simulation,Vortex,Flow separation,Fortran,Vortex lattice method,Solver,Mathematics,Added mass,Potential flow,Aerodynamics
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
344
0377-0427
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
3
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Daniel Garcia192.17
Mehdi Ghommem2212.89
Nathan O. Collier3458.33
B. O. N. Varga400.34
Victor M. Calo519138.14