Proceedings of the 13th Asian Congress of Fluid Mechanics 17-21 December 2010, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Supercritical Wing Design and Optimization for Transonic Civil Airplane

ZHANG Yufei1*, CHEN Haixin2, ZHANG Miao3, ZHANG Meihong4, LIU Tiejun5, FU Song6
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School of Aerospace Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China Shanghai Aircraft Design and Research Institute, Shanghai, 200436, CHINA *E-mail of presenting author: zhang-yf04@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn In this paper, an interactive optimization system is developed for supercritical wing design of COMAC919 (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd) civil airplane. Numerical Optimization based on Computational Fluid Dynamics methods are used for the super-critical wing design and optimization. An in-house developed code called NSAWET, whose accuracy and efficiency are fully verified by standard test cases and realistic engineer applications, is selected for aerodynamics analysis. NSGAII (Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II) is used for optimization. Cut and try is also combined in the optimization process. Super-critical wing is optimized by a wing-body combination. Design results with single objective and multi-objective are compared.

Abstract

Numerical Optimization based on high-fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics methods are used for the supercritical wing design and optimization. NSGA-II is used for optimization. In the optimization process, geometries of the airfoils are deformed by attaching NURBS based increment functions to the basic airfoils expression. With the idea of increment functions, cut and try by designers and numerical optimizations can be united. Design results with single objective and multi-objective are compared. With the single objective (minimum cruise drag coefficient) optimization, the cruise drag can be decreased by about 3 drag counts. On contrast, the multiobjective design (minimum drag coefficients at both the cruise and the preset Drag Divergence Mach number (DDM)) can gain more than 10 counts drag decrease at DDM, with a 3 counts penalty in cruise drag. Design results of the multi-objective optimization are quite insensitive to the velocity disturbance and therefore much more engineering applicable. Keywords Supercritical wing, optimization, multi-objective

2. Geometry Definition
The wing geometry is modeled with a B-spline surface which controlled by eight span-wisely located and oriented airfoils, as in Fig. 1. In the optimization process, geometries of the eight airfoils are deformed by attaching increment functions to the basic airfoils expression, as in equation (1), like the idea of the ref. [1]. In present, the increment function is defined by 4-th order NURBS curve. Expression of NURBS curve represents to ref [2, 3]. Although optimization with parameterized by NURBS curve is studied a lot in airfoil and wing design recent years because of the advantages of NURBS curve. But for an existing airfoil, reverse parameterization of NURBS control points is a bothering and expensive optimization process. Furthermore, tiny numerical error may be imported by the reverse parameterization process, as in ref [2]. Sometimes, numerical error is fatal for supercritical airfoil at the critical flow condition if the reverse parameterization is not well converged. (1) In present study, one airfoils deformation is controlled by 4 NURBS increment curves, as in Fig. 2. NURBS curve 1 operates from leading edge to the highest point of the upper surface. Leading edge point and highest point of the airfoil is fixed by setting the increment function to zero. The curve 1 is generated by 5 control points: (0, 0), (P1X, P1Y), (P2X, P2Y), (P3X, 0), (Xymax, 0). The coordinates of the first and last control points are constants. The y coordinate of the fourth control point is zero to keep smoothness at the airfoils highest point. Therefore, the

1. Introduction
Supercritical airfoil and wing have been developed more than 30 years. The supercritical characteristic leads to improvement of cruise efficiency of airplane at transonic region. For supercritical wing design, one of the most important objectives is improving the cruise efficiency M*L/D. And some other characteristics are also very important for a practicable supercritical wing, such as drag divergence characteristic, buffet boundary, stall behaviors, and so on. Numerical optimization provides a bran-new method for aircraft design. Aerodynamics optimization based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has received its rapid development in recent years. But sometimes aerodynamic optimization methods based on CFD cant be directly used in the realistic aircraft design process. One difficulty for optimization is adding designers experience into the optimization system. For example, a practicable supercritical wing design is not only having high aerodynamic efficiency, but also having a favorable pressure distribution, and a well-balanced transition for the airfoil shapes of span-wise sections. A favorable pressure distribution is hard to parameterize in the optimization system at a fixed lift coefficient. Transition of the span-wise airfoils is also not easy to parameterize as the relative thickness and camber of the span-wise airfoils are very different.

y ybasic yNURBS

curve 1 has five variables, including P1X, P1Y, P2X, P2Y and P3X, as the weight of each points equals 1. NURBS curve 2 operates from the highest point to trailing edge of upper surface, and is controlled by 3 variables P4X, P5X and P5Y. Similarly, the deformation of lower surface is controlled by 2 NURBS curves with 8 variables. Additional, the camber line of airfoil could be heightened or depressed proportionally by a variable. And the location of maximum thickness could be set by another variable. Totally, airfoil shape is controlled by 18 variables. For wing shape modeling, each airfoil has its own twist angle. Therefore, the supercritical wing optimization problem is defined by (18+1)*8+8=152 variables. With the idea of increment functions, cut and try by designers and numerical optimizations can be united. Also, for a new basic wing, we dont need reverse parameterization. Locally and wholly modification of airfoil are easy by giving proper NURBS control points.

order MUSCL up-wind bias interpolation is employed to ensure that the schemes are 2nd order accurate on nonuniform and curvilinear grid. Smooth and continuously derivable van Albada limiter is used to restrict the highorder spurious oscillation in the numerical solution. In present study, the Roes Flux Difference Splitting (FDS) scheme is employed for spatial discretization. Fully implicit lower-upper symmetric-Gauss-Seidel (LUSGS) scheme developed by Yoon and Jameson are integrated as the time stepping method for both N-S equations and the turbulence model equations in NSAWET. In order to achieve 2nd order of temporal accuracy in unsteady computation, the dual-time stepping is adopted. In the present computation, k-g model [6] is used for the turbulence closure.

4. Supercritical airfoil optimization

Single objective optimization is adopted in the supercritical airfoil optimization. Several constraints are used in the optimization to achieve well aerodynamics characteristics. Airfoil deformation method in the Section II is employed in the optimization process. Relative thickness is the most important geometry parameter of an airfoil. In present optimization, maximum relative thickness of the airfoil is fixed to 13%. The thick at 10% and 80% of chord location is restricted to be larger than 8% and 4% to provide enough wing inner volume. Pressure distribution is an important characteristic of a supercritical airfoil. Usually, we can describe a favorable pressure distribution of a typical supercritical airfoil, but we couldnt provide a quantificational pressure coefficient at a fixed lift coefficient. In present study, favorable Cp distribution is defined by four constraints. As in the Fig. 3, the constraints are defined as following: (1). Suction peak: Cp-1.2; (2). Upper surface platform pressure gradient (x<40%): 0.2 dCp / dx 0.5 ; (3). Pressure recovery gradient (55%<x<100%): dCp / dx 3 ; (4). Rare load strength(x=75%): Cp Lower Cp upper 0.7 .
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Fig. 1 Sketch map of the control airfoils of the wing

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Fig. 2 Sketch of airfoil deformation by increment functions

3. Numerical Method
A recently developed Genetic Algorithm call NSGA-II [4] is adopted as the main optimization algorithm because of its robustness, the inherent concurrent processing ability and the capability of solving the nonlinear and global problem. RANS code NSAWET [5] is used for aerodynamics optimization. NSAWET code has been used for years on engineering viscous simulation of realistic aircraft configurations. The finite volume code for structural grid has integrated multiple spatial and time advancing schemes, and provides the users with several widely used turbulence models. In order to get a highly efficient, robust and accurate solver for engineering application, the spatial discretization of NSAWET code is formulated in the frame of the finite volume approach. Two upwind schemes, Roes Flux Difference Splitting (FDS) scheme and van-Leers Flux Vector Splitting (FVS) scheme are integrated. The 3rd

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Fig. 3 Sketch map of Cp distribution constraints With the four pressure constraints, designs of the optimization process would satisfy a favorable supercritical pressure distribution. Lift and moment coefficients are restricted as Cl0.7 and Mz-0.135. The

only optimization objective is minimizing the drag coefficient of the airfoil at cruise lift coefficient (Cl=0.7). An original airfoil is given for a baseline shape. 32 random coordinates of the NURBS control points are produced as GA initial population. After 30 generations of iterative, an optimized airfoil is produced. Table 1 gives the comparisons of the original and optimized airfoils. The lift-drag-ratio of the optimized airfoil is increased 2.4, and the moment coefficient is decreased. Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 give the shapes and cp distributions of the two airfoils. As shown in Fig. 4, leading edge radius of the optimized airfoil is increased to improve the taking off and landing characteristics. Location of the maximum thickness moves forward to restrict the shock wave location. As shown in the Fig. 5, the shock wave of the original airfoil is weakened by optimization. Because the shock wave location moves forward, the suction peak is increased a little to provide enough lift coefficient. Table 1 Aerodynamics characteristic of original and optimized airfoils
Original Optimized AoA () 0.6 0.6 Cl 0.704 0.703 Cd 0.00975 0.00942 Cl/Cd 72.2 74.6 Mz -0.01403 -0.01349

software ICEM CFD, as shown in Fig. 6. Total grid points of wing-body is about 410 6. The first space of the wall normal direction is about 0.01 mm, and the Y plus is about 1. In the optimization process, grid is automatically generated by script program of ICEM CFD.

Fig. 6 Computation grid of wing optimization

5.1. Single objective optimization

Minimum the cruise drag is the only objective of the first stage of design process. The cruise condition is Clwingbody=0.57 at Ma=0.78. After 48 cycles of optimization, an optimized result is generated. The variation process of lift-drag-ratio in the optimization is showed in Fig. 7. Liftdrag-ratio is increased from 20.65 to 20.88, and the drag is decreased about 3 drag counts. Total computation time of the optimization process is 12 days on a 32 core cluster. Cp comparisons of the original and optimized results are shown in the Fig. 8. The optimized wing is nearly shock free at the four wing root sections (from wing root to 37.4% section). The shockwave of the outer sections is weakened by optimization. The objective of minimizing cruise drag drives the wing to a shock free wing. Morawetz theorem shows that a shock free transonic flow is an isolated point. Any small perturbation in Mach number, angle of attack, or Re number may causes a shock wave to appear in the flow. In aircraft design, shock free wing is not a practical design, because the aircraft must fly in a wide range of flow conditions.
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Fig. 4 Comparison of original and optimized airfoils

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Fig. 5 Comparison of original and optimized pressure distributions

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5. Supercritical wing optimization

In present, supercritical wing is optimized for COMAC 919 airplane. Single objective and multi-objective optimization are employed for wing design. Design parameters are defined as section II. Maximum relative thicknesses of all control airfoils are fixed. NS computation for wing fuselage configuration is used for wing design. Computation grid is generated by commercial

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Fig. 7 Variation process of lift-drag-ratio in the optimization

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6. Conclusions
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Fig. 8 Cp comparisons of the original and optimized designs at cruise conditon

5.2. Multi-objective optimization

In this section, double objectives are used in the wing design process to get a robust design, which are minimizing drag coefficients of cruise Mach number (Ma=0.78) and Drag Divergence Mach number (DDM, Ma=0.80). 71 cycles of iterations was processed in the optimization. Drag comparisons of each design is shown in Fig. 9. In Fig. 9, the small symbols represent the temporary designs of the process. It shows that, single objective in the foregoing section and double objective in present give two quite different designs. Cruise drag of the double objective design increases about 3 drag counts, but CdDDM decreases more than 10 drag counts. Considering airplanes entire flight envelope, design of double-objective is more robust than the single objective design. Cp comparison at drag divergence Mach number is shown in Fig. 10. Shockwave of Ma=0.80 is weakened by optimization evidently.
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Optimization method is adopted in the supercritical airfoil and wing design in present. NURBS increment functions are used for parameterization of the wing. With present optimization study, we could conclude that: (1). NSGA-II method wing RANS computation is effective for supercritical airfoil and wing design. (2). Single objective and multi-objective optimization are used in the wing design process of a realistic civil airplane. Cruise drag of single objective optimization can be decreased effectively. But the design is not robust. Multiobjective design is more stable than the original wing from cruise condition to Drag Divergence Mach number, and is applicable in a realistic airplane.

Reference
[1] Hicks, R. M., Henne, P. A., Wing design by numerical optimization, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 15, No. 7, July 1978, pp. 407-412. [2] Lepine, J., Guibault, F., Trepanier, J. Y., Pepin, F., Optimized nonuniform rational B-spline geometrical representation for aerodynamic design of wings, AIAA Journal, Vol. 39, No. 11, Nov. 2001, pp. 20332041. [3] Painchaud-Ouellet, S., Tribes, C., Trepanier, J. Y., Pelletier, D., Airfoil shape optimization using a nonuniform rational B-splines parameterization under thickness constraint, AIAA Journal, Vol. 44, No. 10, Oct. 2006, pp. 2170-2178. [4] Deb, K., Pratap, A., Agarwal, S., Meyarivan, T., A fast and elitist multiobjective genetic algorithm: NSGA-II, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 6, No. 2, April 2002, pp. 182-197. [5] Zhang, Y., Chen, H,, Fu, S., Duan, Z. Y., Qian, R., Computations of a twin-engine civil transporter using window embedment grid technique, AIAA 2008-169. [6] Xiao, Z., Chen, H., Fu, S., Li, F., Numerical Simulation of High Angle of Attack Transonic Flows about a Complete Aircraft Configuration with k-g Model, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2005.

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Fig. 9 Comparisons of CdDDM and Cdcruise of all designs

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Fig. 10 Cp comparisons of the original and doubleobjective design at drag divergence Mach number (Ma=0.80)