GPU-accelerated Scale-Resolving Simulation of Vortex–Shock Phenomena on Multi-Sweep Delta Wings

  • Di Fabbio, Tony (Politecnico di Torino (DIMEAS))
  • Vasquez Giuliano, Lorenzo (Leonardo S.p.A.)
  • Guerrero Rivas, Joel Enrique (Leonardo S.p.A.)
  • Hottois, Romain (Cadence Design Systems, Inc.)
  • Brès, Guillaume (Cadence Design Systems, Inc.)
  • Ivey, Christopher (Cadence Design Systems, Inc.)
  • Heidt, Liam (Cadence Design Systems, Inc.)
  • Wang, Kan (Cadence Design Systems, Inc.)
  • Bose, Sanjeeb (Cadence Design Systems, Inc.)

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This work assesses GPU-accelerated wall-modelled large-eddy simulation for the separated, vortex-dominated flows that characterise high-incidence fighter-aircraft aerodynamics. Two generic military configurations are computed with the charLES Cadence solver on unstructured meshes of up to one billion cells. Lift and surface-pressure distributions agree well with wind-tunnel measurements, while the aerodynamic moments reveal the onset of asymmetric vortex breakdown. Spectral analyses show that the energetic turbulent structures are resolved. Since WMLES does not asymptotically converge to DNS under mesh refinement, classical grid-convergence verification is not applicable; solution quality is instead assessed through a mesh-sensitivity study, in-situ flow-resolution metrics and the statistical convergence of the loads. The results show that, on large GPU-based HPC systems, computational cost is no longer the primary barrier to industrial-scale WMLES; the central challenge is rigorous verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification.