AERO-STRUCTURES

Aero-structural Design and Analysis

Currently, I am working on two main areas related to aerospace – structural design and aerodynamic analysis-  jointly with the Remote Sensing Center at the University of Alabama . I am involved in designing various aerospace structures and carrying out finite element analysis simulations (FEA) for structural safety analysis as well as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to make designs aerodynamically efficient.

The software used are:

  • FEA: MSC Nastran/Patran, ANSYS Mechanical/APDL, ABAQUS
  • CFD: ANSYS Fluids
  • CAD Modeling: SolidWorks, CATIA

CFD analysis of the Basler Aircraft with 32 pylons

Geometry of Basler aircraft with 32 pylons (Front view)

Geometry of Basler aircraft with 32 pylons (Bottom view)

Meshing of Basler aircraft with 32 pylons (Isometric view)

Here, the CFD analysis of a complete Basler aircraft is performed. The CFD analysis was performed in ANSYS FLUENT and required a total to about 16 million elements while considering the first boundary layer thickness of 1 mm. The turbulence model used was k-W SST. The pressure distribution obtained by running the simulation for 10,000 iterations is demonstrated below.

Meshing- Magnified view
Meshing- Magnified view of the pylons
Pressure distribution on the Basler aircraft for flow with side slip angle