Multi-Physics Coupling Approaches for Aerospace Numerical Simulations

The purpose of this paper is to present coupling strategies for aerospace numerical calculations. In the first part, the basic approach used relies on the partitioned coupling of a finite-volume Navier-Stokes solver and a finite-element solid code. These two separate and independent simulation tools carry out exchanges via a coupling library. Two different applications illustrate the capabilities of this coupling method. The main advantage of this approach is to benefit, for each software application, from the experience developed by a large number of specialists over many years. In the second approach, mono-disciplinary software is extended to multi-physics modeling, by adding new simplified modules for other disciplines and by implementing specific coupling algorithms. The modeling of aeroelastic systems is presented as well as several applications to demonstrate the capabilities of this method. Finally, a software structure for code coupling is described in the third part. It consists of an Open System approach, based on a powerful open source assembly of public interfaces.