body forces and moments
Will the RANS solver provide forces and moments for bodies within a model? The scenario is that we're looking for a CFD option for aircraft external flow analysis for determining loads on modifications; three current projects comprise:
1. survey sensor housings
2. engine modification requiring substantial changes to cowl geometry
3. wing-in-ground-effect aircraft control system design incl. stability analysis
We need to be able to resolve the forces and moments for the modification parts independently of the rest of the model.
Also with the WIG we need to be able to move control surfaces between solutions to obtain both complete aircraft forces and moments as well as the specific loads on the control surfaces without having to recreate the complete model for each surface position.
Feedback
Questions? Ideas? Problems?
Force and Moment Monitors
Yes, Caedium does supports force and moment (around the origin) reporting via monitors. If you want to take moments around another point (P) then you'll need to create a new Result = Sum((XYZ - P) cross F), where XYZ is the field point vector, P is a constant vector, cross is the cross-product, and F is the field force vector. For more on creating new results see "Fluid Flow Around a Sphere: Theory Comparison".
You can report the loads on any group of faces - it doesn't have to be the entire model.
For each configuration you'll need to create a flow volume, so you would have to recreate your model. You could use a base volume for your stationary geometry and then copy and paste it for each configuration prior to subtracting your control surface volumes.