High-Fidelity Unsteady Flow Simulation Strategy for Ground Vehicle Fording and Swimming

Burgreen, GW, Bhushan, S., Wang, X., Chambers, B., Blake, J., Thompson, D., & Foster, J. W. (2017). High-Fidelity Unsteady Flow Simulation Strategy for Ground Vehicle Fording and Swimming. NATO CSO STO AVT-265 Specialist Meeting. Vilnius, Lithuania.

Abstract

This paper reports on the status and progress being made on various aspects of the vehicle fording/swimming problem using a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics. The predictive capabilities of existing turbulence and free-surface models are evaluated for massively separated flows and breaking waves that are characteristic of fording/swimming vehicles. High-resolution grids are identified to be critical for accurate prediction of such flows. The effect of hydrodynamic forces and moments on the traction of a notional fording/swimming vehicle is demonstrated. Hybrid RANS/LES turbulence models, volume-of-fluid free-surface models, and overset mesh solvers are found to be reasonably accurate. However, improvements are required for turbulence models to account for transitional flow and air-water interfaces.