ARTICLE IN PRESS

Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470

www.elsevier.com/locate/paerosci

Progress and future prospects of CFD in aerospace—

Wind tunnel and beyond
Kozo Fujii
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Sagamihara,
Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan

Abstract

A historical perspective of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in aerospace in the last 30 years is firstly given. It is
shown that there still remain a number of problems that are geometrically simple but difficult to simulate even after many
simulations were conducted over complex body configurations. The fact indicates that CFD research is now in the ‘‘specific
phase’’ and requires some innovation.
The innovation includes ‘‘evolutionary effort’’ and ‘‘revolutionary effort’’. As an example of evolutionary effort, large
eddy simulations/ Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations (LES/RANS) hybrid method and its application
examples are presented. A shift from RANS to LES/RANS hybrid method occurs not because of the advancement of
computers but because of our recognition that separated flows are inherently unsteady and successful simulations require
LES-like computations.
Comment is given that there may be other types of research necessary to make CFD a real useful tool for a design in
addition to simply showing CFD capability for complex body configurations. As one of the examples, construction of a
CFD database is presented. Another issue is to make CFD infrastructures so that people outside CFD community may use
CFD as a tool to formulate or refine their ideas.
To find out revolutionary effort, the message given by Prof. Dean Chapman in 1977 is referred. Observation of current
CFD research reveals that evaluation methods of ‘‘scale effect’’ that were believed to be the most important benefit of CFD
have not yet been established. Such establishment is the key for the revolution of CFD and researchers need to focus their
effort on the development of technologies to evaluate scale effect. Only with such new CFD technologies can ‘‘conceptual
design with CFD’’ become feasible.
r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
2. Historical perspective of CFD in aerospace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
3. CFD in the specific phase—current status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
3.1. CFD vs. EFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
3.2. Simple problems still remain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Tel.: +81 42 759 8258; fax: +81 42 759 8461.

E-mail address: fujii@flab.eng.isas.jaxa.jp.

0376-0421/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paerosci.2005.09.001
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
456 K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470

3.2.1. Thin-airfoil stall characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

3.2.2. High a flows over delta and double-delta wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
3.2.3. Supersonic base flows—finding a new efficient tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
3.2.4. Observations from the examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
4. Paradigm change for the future prospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
4.1. Evolutionary effort—1: RANS to LES/RANS hybrid methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
4.1.1. Thin-airfoil stall characteristics—RANS/LES hybrid simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
4.1.2. High a flows over a delta and double-delta wings—not yet solved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
4.1.3. Supersonic base flows—RANS/LES hybrid simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
4.1.4. Observations from the examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
4.2. Evolutionary efforts—2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
4.2.1. Further than wing design—CFD database as an example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
4.2.2. Tools to help design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
4.2.3. Education of fluid dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
4.3. Revolutionary effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
5. Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

1. Introduction there are strong needs for CFD as a practical

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has made
great progress in the last 30 years. There is much
commercial software available now and anyone
seems to be able to carry out sophisticated flow
simulations even on PCs. When glancing back at the
history of CFD progress, we notice that there have
been a few epoch-making stages. In the aerospace
community, CFD first attracted people’s attention
in the 1970s for simulating transonic flows. Em-
bedded shock waves were automatically captured
and the design process of commercial aircraft was
drastically changed since then [1]. The equations to
be solved have changed from non-linear potential to
Navier–Stokes equations in the early 1980s for
research applications. In the middle of the 1980s,
CFD in aerospace again attracted people’s attention
for simulating hypersonic flows associated with
space transportation system development including
reentry vehicles. Aerodynamic heating was a main
topic and the solution methods for fluid–chemical
reaction were discussed. TVD schemes that kept
monotone shock structures with no parameter
tuning became the main solution methods, as
unphysical chemical reactions were avoided. Since
then, no such epoch-making topics appeared in the
aerospace CFD. At first glance, it may seem
disappointing, but it indicates that CFD technology
has developed to a certain level and people use CFD
as one of the essential analysis tools. The fact that
many workshops were held for discussion on
validations and verifications of CFD shows that
analysis and design tool.
Advancement of computer hardware has been a
major factor for the acceleration of CFD research
since supercomputers appeared in the late 1970s.
Fig. 1 shows the progress of computers in this
period. In a few years, performance of leading-edge
computers would be on the order of petaflops which
is roughly ten million times faster than the first
commercial supercomputer CRAY 1 that appeared
in the late 1970s.
There was a workshop on ‘‘computer require-
ments for computational aerodynamics’’ at NASA
Ames Research Center in 1977 [2]. Prof. Dean
Chapman wrote in his ‘‘Opening Remarks’’ that
there are two major motivations behind CFD and
they will not change in coming decades. These two
motivations were (1) to provide an important new
technology capability and (2) economics. To illus-
trate the first, he compared the wind tunnel
experiment and CFD as follows. There are many
restrictions in wind tunnel experiments such as scale
effects, wall and support interference, aerodynamic
distortion, etc. On the other hand, the restriction of
CFD comes from computer speed and storage, and
the technical trend shows that such limitations are
rapidly decreasing. The last message given by Dean
Chapman was essentially correct and that happened
on CFD for the 30 years since then. Even three-
dimensional Navier–Stokes simulation over a 3-D
wing is not a difficult task and can now be carried
out within an hour on PCs. However, it is not clear
if CFD has shown all the expected capability. For
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470 457

instance, it is questionable if we can evaluate scale
effect (Reynolds number effect) so long as we use
Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equa-
tion simulations with turbulence models. Progress
of computer speeds has not yet solved and will not
solve this problem.
In this paper, the development of CFD in the last
30 years and some of the remaining problems are
presented from a historical perspective. Based on
these observations, the future direction of CFD is
then discussed. Before closing the Introduction, the
author would like to leave the following message.
Remember that the CFD history considered here is
limited to practical applications in aerospace.
Everybody knows that there has been a much
earlier CFD effort in the 1900s. In addition, note
that the messages and the examples in this manu-
script only reflect the author’s narrow experience
and limited exposure to the field of CFD.
2. Historical perspective of CFD in aerospace
Practical flow simulations in aerospace using the
compressible Navier–Stokes equations first ap-
peared in 1985. As shown in the overview article
in Aerospace America in 1986 [3], transonic flow
simulations over a commercial-type wing and a
wing-fuselage were carried out in Japan almost at
the same time as those for fighter aircraft at the
NASA Ames Research Center. The results [4,5] are
shown in Figs. 2(a) and (b). These were the first
example of the Japanese GFLOPS supercomputer,

Fig. 1. Progress of computers (Courtesy Mr. Tadashi Watanabe, NEC Corporation).

Fig. 2. Three-dimensional Navier–Stokes simulations in 1986: (a) practical wing and (b) practical wing-fuselage.

458
FUJITSU VP400, which appeared in 1985. It took
about 2 h of computer time to achieve rough
convergence to the steady state. It takes 3–4 ms per
grid point per iterations for our CFD program to
simulate 3-D compressible Navier–Stokes equations
on current PCs, whereas it took 7–9 ms on the
VPP400 in 1985. As shown in this example, steady-
state flow simulations with less than one million grid
points may be carried out within an hour or so using
current PCs. Although simulations of the enormous
number of cases are required in the design process,
they can be carried out within a reasonable time
frame.
Geometry complexity is not the problem to be
solved by computer advancement. People know that
bottleneck in flow simulations now is not computer
time but the time required for preparing surface and
volume grid data from a CAD geometry. There still
remain other problems, however, in the current
CFD to be solved with innovative ideas.
Earll Murman, Professor at MIT, gave a general
lecture in the ICAS 2000 symposium held in
Harrogate, England, and talked about aeronautical
design engineering and manufacturing [6]. One of
the figures in his manuscript is replotted in Fig. 3,
which shows time evolution of a number of major
US aerospace companies. He mentioned that the
trend follows a classic pattern of product evolution
exhibited by many industries as studied and
reported by Utterback. He said, ‘‘In the early years
of a new product, the fluid phase, the basic product
features are evolving and many startup companies
enter the field. At some point, a dominant design
emerges when the basic product features become
established and a transitional phase is entered.
Many factors come into play to establish the
dominant design including technology, infrastruc-
ture, customer expectations, individual entrepre-
neurs, etc. At this point, more companies start to
Fluid to Transitional
25
20
number of Firms
15
10
5
0 use CFD as one of the essential analysis tools
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Fig. 3. Evolution of CFD—Utterback’s theory [6].
ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
leave than enter the field. Innovation starts to switch
from product to process technologies, i.e. to design,
development, manufacturing innovation. As the
product features stabilize the specific phase is
reached where significant changes in product
features are unlikely’’. From Prof. Murman’s talk,
the author thought that Utterback’s theory also
applied to the CFD in aerospace. In early days,
numerical algorithms were developed to solve the
basic equations, for instance, non-linear potential,
Euler or Navier–Stokes equations and correspond-
ing computer programs were created to conduct
flow simulations. A lot of ideas appeared, such as
implicit time-integration schemes; approximate fac-
torization, approximate LU decomposition,
LU–SGS, TVD-like schemes for space discretiza-
tions; flux vector splitting, flux difference splitting,
AUSM, etc. With the aid of such algorithm
development and appearance of supercomputers, a
lot of researchers entered the area of CFD and its
technology rapidly progressed. It was a period of
CFD to become matured and people enjoyed
visualized images that showed CFD’s capability to
handle complex body configurations and complex
physics. This period is considered to be the ‘‘fluid
phase’’ where product innovation occurs. There are
still some efforts even now but I would say that the
importance of such effort mainly finished early in
the 1990s, when we obtained basic CFD methods to
solve a wide variety of aerodynamic problems.
(Note that only limited areas of CFD applications
are discussed and there are areas in which even the
mathematical model has not been well established).
From the late 1980s to the middle of the 1990s, there
was a discussion on ‘‘overset or patched structured
grids’’ or ‘‘unstructured grids’’, which were strate-
gies to solve problems. Improvement of the
efficiency of the CFD solution process using parallel
computers was another hot topic, and even the
international symposium named ‘‘Parallel CFD’’
to Specific appeared. In this period, small but inevitable effort
to use CFD technology for practical problems was
? the main focus. I call it ‘‘transitional phase’’ because
process innovation occurred (although the original
meaning is totally different). Interdisciplinary ap-
plications or design optimization appeared and
CFD was used as one of the solution elements.
From one viewpoint, it indicates that CFD technol-
ogy has developed to a certain level where people
even with unsolved problems such as choosing
an appropriate turbulence model. From the
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
transitional phase to the current specific phase, the
number of the researchers entering the area became
less than the number of researchers leaving the area.
In ‘‘specific phase’’, changes in product features are
unlikely and some innovation is required. The
message here is not a negative one suggesting that
CFD research is finished or diminishing, but a
positive one insisting that we, CFD researchers,
have to look back at what we have done and
reconsider what we need to do for the future. By
doing so, CFD technology will continue to extend
its use.
3. CFD in the specific phase—current status
3.1. CFD vs. EFD
CFD researchers have been trying to prove the
capability of CFD. In general, our effort mainly
focused on fulfilling the requirement of solving
practical problems with a certain level of fidelity
within reasonable time. As a result, we have been
showing simulation examples of the flows for more
and more complex body configurations. CFD
research is not complete and it is true that such
effort should be continued, but at the same time, the
need of users from outside the CFD community
should be considered. There may be other types of
research necessary for CFD to become a really
useful tool for design purpose.
Table 1 shows the comparison of CFD with
experimental fluid dynamics (EFD) with a wind
tunnel experiment being a representative of EFD.
This comparison may be personally biased and
there may exist a much different way of thinking,
but this can be taken as one approach. The last
column illustrates disadvantages of each apparatus.
Table 1
Wind tunnel experiment and computational fluid dynamics
EFD CFD
Wind tunnels Computers
Measurement techniques Numerical algorithms
Manufacturing techniques Programming techniques
(parallel language, etc.)
Model manufacturing CAD interface, grid
generation
Data acquisition Post-processing
Data handling Visualization software
Reynolds number effect Discretization error,
turbulence model, etc.
459
In wind tunnel experiments, many people do not
spend much time on the items described in the table.
There are people conducting research for new
measurement techniques such as PIV or PSP, but
the majority of people simply operate wind tunnels
with existing measurement techniques. They devel-
op neither pressure sensors nor force balances for
their experiments. In other words, the items for
EFD listed in Table 1 are not the main topics for the
experimental research but just tools for their
experiments. On the other hand, when talking about
CFD research, people think about the items shown
in Table 1. Actually, conferences on CFD have
focused on these topics. CFD has been focusing too
much on the single aspect as a computational tool
and emphasis on aerospace engineering has been
somewhat lost in the mind of CFD researchers. We
will come back to this point in Section 4.
3.2. Simple problems still remain
CFD researchers know that CFD is a powerful
tool but not a magic tool that solves any problem.
Even though there appear a lot of examples of
simulations for complex body configurations, there
are left many physical problems that look simple
but difficult to simulate. Computations may be easy
but simulations (meaning with satisfaction to the
required accuracy) are difficult. Here, three exam-
ples are shown for the future discussion of the
present paper.
3.2.1. Thin-airfoil stall characteristics
Precise estimation of maximum lift with a stall
angle of a wing is an important issue for the
aerodynamic design of aircraft. It is important and
necessary to develop a prediction method of such
unsteady flows at high Reynolds numbers with
practical computational costs. Paul Rubbert, the
leader of the CFD group at Boeing Commercial
Company from the 1980s until he retired, said to us,
‘‘Flow simulations at cruise condition can be done
by non-linear potential equations and boundary
layer theory. Solutions of Navier–Stokes equations
are needed for the simulation under buffet or stall
conditions,’’ when he visited Japan in 1985. CFD
has not yet answered his comments. It is still
difficult to simulate massively separated unsteady
turbulent flows near stall conditions even though
the conventional CFD technology has enabled
precise numerical analysis of attached flows at
relatively low angles of attack. In 2000, there was
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
460 K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
a CFD workshop held at the National Aerospace
Laboratory (currently ISTA/JAXA) in Japan,
where flows over three types of wing sections having
different stall characteristics at low to high angles of
attack were the targets to be simulated. The stall
characteristics of the NACA63-018 and NACA63-
012 are classified into trailing-edge and leading-edge
stalls, respectively, and were well predicted by the
conventional RANS simulations. However, predic-
tion of the stall characteristics of the NACA64A006
airfoil at high Reynolds numbers was not successful.
This airfoil has a thin-airfoil stall feature, where
laminar flow separation occurs at the leading edge
and transition makes turbulent reattachment. The
reattachment point gradually moves rearward with
the increase of angles of attack. Fig. 4 shows the
summary of the lift characteristics of NA-
CA64A006, thin airfoil computed by many RANS
models at the workshop. The wing configuration is
simple and grid generation is not a difficult task.
However, simulations are not easy. We will come
back to this point in Section 4.
3.2.2. High a flows over delta and double-delta wings
The characteristics of a delta wing at low speed
and relatively high angles of attack are governed by
leading-edge separation vortices (Fig. 5). A lot of
experiments and numerical simulations have been
conducted and the characteristics of flows over a
delta wing have been discussed. Fairly accurate
results were obtained for a simple delta wing [7,8],
where the lift and moment characteristics were well
predicted by the Navier–Stokes simulations as they
Fig. 4. Estimation of the lift characteristics by RANS simula-
tions: taken from the website.
Flow
L
F
D
Fig. 5. Schematic picture of vortical flow field over a delta wing.
1.5
1
0.5
Fine Grid
Coarse Grid
Exp.,30%chordwise
50%chordwise
70%chordwise
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Spanwise location
Fig. 6. Example of the simulation result—spanwise pressure
distributions.
capture the growth of leading-edge separation
vortices that are the key mechanism of non-linear
lift production. However, spanwise pressure dis-
tributions over the upper surface of the wing depend
on the grid resolution or computational schemes.
Fig. 6 shows one example of the simulation results
for the delta wing with aspect ratio of one (761
sweep—so-called Hummel’s case [9]). There are
many sources for the discrepancy between the
computational results and the experiment, but grid
resolution obviously influences the vortical-flow
structures over the upper surface of the wing.
Fortunately, lift and moment characteristics are
well predicted even by the simulations using coarse
grid distributions. Figs. 7(a) and (b) are the
computed locations and the strengths of the
leading-edge separation vortices at each chordwise
station. The result shows that the vortex is weaker
for the simulation using a coarse grid but the vortex
core is located closer to the wing surface, resulting
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
0.065
Coarse Grid
0.055
Fine Grid
z /c 0.045
0.035
0.025
0.015
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0
(a) Chordwise location (b)
Fig. 7. Effect of grid resolutions: (a) location of vortex cores and (b) strength of vortex.
Fig. 8. Schematic picture of vortical flow field over a double-
delta wing.
in the similar lift force due to the vortex. This
phenomenon was pointed out by the author in 1987
for the double-delta wing [10]. Although lift and
moment characteristics of a simple delta-type
wing can be well predicted by the Navier–Stokes
simulations, it does not necessarily mean that the
flow field is well captured. It still remains a
mystery whether the agreement of the lift is
accidental or there may be a physical reason for
that agreement.
The situation becomes worse for a double-delta
wing having a kink in the leading edge. Over the
double-delta wing, there exist two vortices emanat-
ing from the leading edge of the strake and the main
wing (see Fig. 8). These vortices interact with each
other and finally merge together at certain angles of
attack. The flow field over a double-delta wing is
much more complex as the research by the present
author [11,12] at an early age of CFD suggested. A
CFD study of the flow field in the past showed that
there still remained a large discrepancy with
experiments even when very fine grid distributions
are used [13].
461
0.98
Coarse Grid
0.94
Fine Grid
0.9
Ps
0.86
0.82
0.78
0.74
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Chordwise location
Fig. 9. Schematic picture of supersonic base flows.
We see a lot of nice visualization images of
leading-edge vortices for fighter-type aircraft, but
we should remember that even the flow field over a
simple double-delta wing is not necessarily well
simulated. The base of such simulation is rather
fragile compared to the attached flows over a
conventional wing.
3.2.3. Supersonic base flows—finding a new efficient
tool
Base regions exist in most space transportation
vehicles. Accurate simulation of the base flows is
critically important as the base drag influences the
aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle at a
certain speed range. As shown in Fig. 9 schemati-
cally, supersonic base flow includes a large recircu-
lation region. As the freestream becomes
supersonic, the interaction of shear layer with
expansion and compression waves appears. Even
with such practical importance, the base pressure
has not been successfully estimated until recently.
Flows over the HOPE-X experimental space vehicle,
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
462 K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
aerospike nozzles and other configurations having
the base region were simulated by the group of
present author using RANS model. However,
pressure distributions over the base area were not
well captured in any simulation. A similar report
was published in Europe.
3.2.4. Observations from the examples
From the three examples shown above, we notice
that there still remain problems, which are geome-
trically simple but difficult to simulate by CFD. We
can easily obtain numerical solutions, but the
reliability stands on a fragile base.
Even with less accurate solutions, we may find
important physics or some data useful for design
and analysis, as reliability really depends on the
requirements by the people who use CFD. How-
ever, insufficient solutions (like improper modeling
or insufficient grid resolution) are sometimes used
for discussions. Validation of the physical and
mathematical models and verification of the numer-
ical solutions have been discussed in many CFD
workshops. They have shown some guidelines for
specific applications especially from the viewpoint
of computational mechanics, but most of them are
not discussed from real engineering viewpoints.
Unfortunately, the threshold has not been estab-
lished in many flow physics, and the decision
depends on a researchers’ experience. We always
have to foresee the insufficiency behind CFD
simulations.
4. Paradigm change for the future prospect
4.1. Evolutionary effort—1: RANS to LES/RANS
hybrid methods
There is an obvious shift in the CFD research
from RANS simulations (with turbulence model) to
large eddy simulations (LES) due to rapid computer
advancement. As Phillip Spalart suggested in Ref.
[14], emerging technology produces hybrid strate-
gies retaining conventional turbulence modeling in
attached region while adopting LESs in the region
of separated flows. The examples in Section 3.2 all
include large recirculating flow regions and are good
test cases for such hybrid strategies. The shift is
supported by the rapid progress of computer
performance, but more importantly, we start to
recognize that the nature of flow physics, even from
the engineering viewpoint, requires unsteady flow
simulations. Separated flows are inherently unstea-
dy and steady recirculating region may be the
result of an average of strongly unsteady flows.
Capturing such unsteady flow behavior is inevitable
for the flow analysis and eventual control of the
flows. Without LES that captures unsteady beha-
vior of the flows, accurate result may not be
obtained even as an average as the following
examples will show.
LES has been applied to the flows of some airfoils
near stall at high Reynolds numbers [15–17]. Mellen
et al. [15] suggested that LES can successfully
resolve the turbulent transition directly and predict
flow behaviors including separation and reattach-
ment, if the mesh is adequately fine near the walls to
resolve near-wall turbulent structures while the
results with coarse mesh resolution are generally
disappointing. However, the mesh requirements for
LES become enormous (from our estimation, it
would require about 500 times more grid points
necessary than those used in the computation shown
below). In addition, fine mesh resolution near wall
limits the time step size for the computation.
Therefore, it still remains difficult to apply LES to
complex flows at high Reynolds numbers as seen in
many engineering problems under the current
computer environment.
To overcome these difficulties, LES/RANS hy-
brid methodology was proposed in recent years
[18,19]. The hybrid method used by the present
author is different from detached eddy simulations
(DES) which is a modification of the Spalart–All-
maras turbulence model [19]. The term ‘‘LES/
RANS hybrid’’ used here, however, includes many
of the similar approaches and the difference of the
formulations does not influence the present discus-
sion. The hybrid approach is a relatively new
method in which the RANS formulation is applied
near the solid surface, while the LES formulation is
applied to massively separated flow regions. The
hybrid methodology is considered to require less
computational cost than LES as it alleviates the
required mesh resolution near walls and the
resultant time step limitation. The following simula-
tion examples that the author’s group has con-
ducted show the effectiveness of LES/RANS hybrid
methodology for solving the problems shown in
Sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.3.
4.1.1. Thin-airfoil stall characteristics—RANS/LES
hybrid simulations
As presented in Section 3.2, the estimation of
thin-airfoil stall characteristics using any RANS
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470 463

Fig. 10. Simulation result by the LES/RANS hybrid method with compact differencing: (a) instantaneous and (b) time averaged.

model has not been successful. Here, LES/RANS

hybrid methodology is applied to subsonic flows
over a NACA64A006 airfoil at high Reynolds
number and various angles of attack. As pointed
out earlier, it is important to capture laminar flow
separation, transition and turbulent reattachment
near the leading edge. To improve the spatial
resolution, spatial derivatives of governing equa-
tions are evaluated by the sixth-order compact
difference scheme, which achieves spectral-like
resolution with minimized dispersive and dissipative
numerical errors [20]. The computational conditions
are set to be the same as the experiments of
McCollough and Gault [21,22]. Fig. 10(a) shows
Fig. 11. Simulation result by the LES/RANS hybrid method
the instantaneous plots of the iso-surface of the with compact differencing.
total pressure in space and the pressure contours
over the wing surface. Small vortices emanating
from somewhere near the leading edge and con-
structing a sheet-like structure are observed. When
the flow is averaged for a certain time span, the flow
variation in the spanwise direction disappears and
the flow becomes almost 2-D as Fig. 10(b)
illustrates. In this ‘‘averaged’’ flow, there exists a
small bubble near the leading edge as being
observed in the chordwise Mach-number contours
plotted in Fig. 11. Although not shown here,
computed chordwise Cp distributions over the
surface show good agreement with the experiment.
The computed CL–a curve is compared with the
experiment in Fig. 12. The LES/RANS hybrid
simulation successfully captures the thin-airfoil lift
characteristics. The result computed with the con-
ventional upwind scheme also shown in Fig. 12 fails
to predict the same lift characteristics. The result
indicates that simulations using the conventional
upwind method would require much higher grid
resolution. Nevertheless, the RANS/LES hybrid
method is successful in capturing flow features of Fig. 12. CL–a curve by the LES/RANS hybrid method with
this airfoil stall characteristics. compact differencing.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
464 K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
Detailed discussions of the flow structures as well
as the computational method are presented in the
original paper [23].
4.1.2. High a flows over a delta and double-delta
wings—not yet solved
It is quite natural to hypothesize that the
discrepancy between the computational and experi-
mental results presented in Section 3.2.2 may come
from insufficient grid resolution. As presented in
Ref. [10], four million background grid points with
another four million grid points locally adapted to
the vortical flow region were used for the simula-
tion. The result obviously showed some improve-
ment but was still not satisfactory. Then, we applied
a compact difference scheme (as the simulation of
thin-airfoil characteristics shown above) to improve
the spatial resolution with a limited number of grid
points [24].
Results of simulations over a simple delta wing
and a double-delta wing are shown in Figs. 13(a)
and (b) as spanwise surface pressure distributions at
certain chordwise locations over the wing surface.
Both results show another improvement, but the
location of the main vortex still exhibits discrepancy
from the experiment. The computed locus of the
strake and wing vortices and resultant spanwise
pressure distributions in another chordwise stations
showed differences. Note that we have used a
RANS model and/or laminar flow simulations so
far. With improvements in the measurement tech-
niques, good experimental data became available.
For a delta wing, Mitchell et al. [25] showed the
presence of stationary sub-structures in the rolling-
up shear layer as a leading-edge separation vortex in
mean flow measurement at near one million
Reynolds numbers. They also carried out computa-
1.6
1.4
1.2
1 1
−CP
0.8
0.6
0.4
Compact (6th order)
0.2 Roe (3rd order)
Experiment
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
(a) Spanwise Location
Fig. 13. Spanwise CP distributions: (a) delta wing and (b) double-delta wing.
tions using DES (a kind of LES/RANS hybrid
methods) and showed that both steady and un-
steady sub-structures exist in the shear layer
depending on the grid resolution [26].
Visbal and Gordnier computed the flow at a low
Reynolds number using a compact difference
scheme [27] and studied the vortex structure in the
shear layer. As these results suggested and the
author pointed out at the beginning of this section,
we may need to resolve the structure of the rolling-
up shear layer for accurate prediction of the leading-
edge separation vortex flows over a delta wing. The
approach should use a LES or LES/RANS hybrid
method and such effort is underway. The leading-
edge separation vortex flow structure is much more
complicated than has been expected and accurate
simulation is still very difficult even for such simple
body configurations.
4.1.3. Supersonic base flows—RANS/LES hybrid
simulations
As pointed out in Section 3.2, the base pressure of
a blunt body at supersonic speeds has not been
predicted well. There are various techniques for
numerically simulating such complicated turbulent
flows, but LES/RANS hybrid method may be a
good choice.
The experiment [28] by Herrin and Dutton for
axisymmetric base flow is taken here as an example
for the simulation. A free-stream Mach number of
M ¼ 2.46 and a unit Reynolds number of 45 million
–per meter are imposed as an inflow. With the base
radius of 31.75 mm, the resulting Reynolds number
based on the diameter is 2.858 million. The
computational grid used in this study is roughly
three million [29].
1.6
Compact (6th order)
1.4 Roe (3rd order)
Roe (Fine grid+Zonal)
1.2 Experiment
−CP
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
(b) Spanwise Location
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
Fig. 14. Instantaneous view of the vorticity magnitude contours:
LES/RANS hybrid computation.
Fig. 15. Instantaneous view of the vorticity magnitude contours:
RANS computation.
Fig. 14 shows an instantaneous view of the
computed vorticity magnitude contours computed
by the LES/RANS hybrid method. There exist
strong flow unsteadiness and flow field changes in
time. Fig. 15 shows the same plot computed by the
RANS method. The computed flow field exhibits
steady feature and shows no observable change in
time. When a sequence of the time-dependent results
computed by the LES/RANS hybrid method for a
certain time span is averaged, the vorticity magni-
tude contours become similar to Fig. 14 (although
the size of the re-circulating region is different as
will be discussed later). This indicates that there
exists strong unsteadiness in the supersonic base
flow and the steady flow field that we usually
observe and typically known base flows are just
time-averaged flow fields. Note that the visualized
image of the crossflow in the wake created from the
computed result showed strong unsteadiness and a
good agreement with the image taken in the
experiment. The time-averaged base pressure dis-
tributions along the base surface are compared with
the experiment in Fig. 16. The RANS computation
shows the lower pressure distributions compared to
the experiment, and a strong variation of the
pressure distribution over the base surface.
465
Fig. 16. Comparison of the computed base pressure distribu-
tions.
Although not shown here, the RANS results show
that a strong reverse flow exists in the wake region.
The flow is accelerated outward along the base
surface, which causes the reduction and variation of
pressure in the radial direction as in Fig. 16. Note
that LES in this plot is the solution using LES with
insufficient grid resolution near the wall. The LES/
RANS hybrid method shows very good agreement
with experiment.
4.1.4. Observations from the examples
The results above show that capturing the
unsteady nature of flow field leads to accurate flow
simulations and the LES/RANS hybrid method
including the DES method is appropriate for
accurate simulation of complex flows under reason-
able computer resources and computer time. The
LES/RANS hybrid method may replace many of
the RANS simulations and can be a practical
simulation tool for the next 5–10 years until full
LES simulations become feasible. The LES/RANS
hybrid method is a powerful method but future
simulation examples would also show their limita-
tions. One obvious deficiency is transition, where
simulations would be necessary to capture scale
effects, that will be discussed in the next section.
4.2. Evolutionary efforts—2
4.2.1. Further than wing design—CFD database as
an example
In the past, CFD has not been used as a key
design tool for rockets and/or spacecraft although it
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
466 K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
has been used to supply additional data to experi-
ment. CFD has been mainly used to confirm that
the design methodology is acceptable, or used for
the analysis of element by element. One of the main
reasons for CFD not being involved in the design
process is that accuracy of CFD simulations has not
been well established. Accuracy of CFD simulations
over aircraft was discussed frequently and, e.g., it
was shown that the estimation error of transonic
drag of wings by the Navier–Stokes simulations is
less than certain drag counts [30]. For the body
configurations of space transportation systems, we
cannot clearly tell how accurate we can predict the
forces and moments even for a very simple
configuration. The designers are interested not in
sophisticated turbulence models, but in a clear
answer whether the estimation error is 5%, 20%
or 100%. They would accept conventional turbu-
lence models if the solution accuracy is clearly given.
If the errors are, for instance, within 10%, CFD
simulations would be used for the initial estimation
of the flight path design of reusable launch vehicles
(RLVs).
Fig. 17 shows an example of single stage-to-orbit
(SSTO) body configurations. It is important to
discuss the effect of nose radius, shoulder curvature,
base flatness and other geometrical parameters since
the pitch angles would vary 3601 during maneuver.
There are two key issues here; first, we need to
accumulate a lot of computational data for a wide
variety of body geometries and flow conditions.
Second, a certain level of reliability should be
established based on a discussion of the accuracy
of the data. As the body configuration is simple,
simulations are not difficult and neither a sophisti-
cated grid generation program nor a sophisticated
computer code is needed. From the viewpoint of
Fig. 17. SSTO reusable launch vehicle.
1.5
1.0
0.50
0.0
CA
-0.50
M=0.70 CFD Grid 01
M=0.70 Experiment
-1.0 M=0.90 CFD Grid 01
M=0.90 Experiment
M=1.20 CFD Grid 01
-1.5 M=1.20 Experiment
M=2.00 CFD Grid 01
M=2.00 Experiment
-2.0
0 30 60 90 120 150 180
α, deg
Fig. 18. Computed axial forces for the Apollo capsule.
CFD technique, it may not be interesting. However,
the results of such ‘‘easy’’ simulations will be useful
in the real design of RLVs. We recently conducted
many CFD simulations in that direction for current
and future space transportation vehicle develop-
ment [31–33].
Since the purpose of this section is not to show
the detailed results but to show the importance of
this kind of work as a new direction of CFD
research, very limited data are presented. We first
simulate the flow field over an Apollo capsule.
Although the Apollo capsule is not designed as a
reusable vehicle, it was chosen as a representative
configuration of bluff bodies and there is a large
amount of experimental data available for compar-
ison. The computed axial force coefficients for the
capsule-like configuration are shown in Fig. 18 for
validation purpose. The CFD results are in excellent
agreement with the experimental data [31] for all
angles of attack range over the whole speed regime.
The results for a wide variety of Mach numbers and
angles of attack indicated that the CFD aerody-
namic prediction at least for the basic configuration
has sufficient reliability for the preliminary design of
RLVs. Although not shown here, some of the
configuration parameters are changed for the
discussion and the detailed flow mechanisms behind
the characteristics are investigated [32,33]. A lot of
computed data for many body configurations at
awide range of flow conditions are accumulated and
a CFD database is under construction for future
vehicle design.
The author has emphasized the shift from RANS
to LES-type simulations in this paper, and it may
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
sound contradictory to insist RANS simulations
using relatively coarse grid distributions. As pointed
out in Section 3.2.4, the accuracy of CFD is
frequently discussed based on the comparison with
experiments from a computational viewpoint in the
past, but accuracy should be discussed mainly based
on the requirement from an engineering viewpoint.
For the preliminary design of RLVs, the most
important issue is that we need to supply a tool that
can guarantee its accuracy. Simulation tools that
accurately capture detailed flow physics are to be
used in further stages of the design process. We need
to develop CFD technology toward two directions:
(1) pursuit for better accuracy for detailed designs
and (2) possible physical discussions and confirma-
tion of the accuracy of the conventional approach
as a current engineering tool. Sometimes, these two
directions are mixed up in the discussion of CFD.
For supersonic base flows (Section 4.1.3) for
example, RANS simulations would show about
10% lower base pressure. With that knowledge, the
RANS results can be used in the preliminary design
process of space transportation vehicle configura-
tions.
4.2.2. Tools to help design
For the design of commercial aircraft, the basic
body configuration is not too much different from
existing ones. There are a lot of data available and
the designers can start with such data as the design
may be conceptually the same as the existing ones.
Optimization methods using current CFD tools
may work well for such limited use. For the design
of aircraft of a new concept, CFD should be an
integrated part of the analysis and design tools.
From discussion with non-CFD aerodynamic re-
searchers, the author found that there is a strong
requirement to use CFD as a tool. They need a tool
to help their thinking. They are specialists of flow
physics and would not want to spend much time to
understand the CFD details. To make CFD as one
of such tools, we have to develop an infrastructure
or a system that does not require the knowledge of
CFD details such as grid distributions, turbulence
models, etc. We know it is dangerous to use CFD
without knowing the method details, but such
danger may be removed by considering sophisti-
cated systems. Such a system depends on the
applications and therefore commercial software is
not adequate because commercial software aims to
handle problems in any engineering discipline. An
example may be shown in Ref. [34].
467
4.2.3. Education of fluid dynamics
For the same reason, CFD can be used as a good
teaching tool for fluid dynamics. This has been done
in universities but should be carried out in industries
as well. CFD solutions are based on physical and
mathematical models. As discretization errors are
inevitable in such techniques, simulation results
should be carefully handled. With care, CFD could
become a very good education tool both for
students and engineers. Again, we need to develop
the infrastructure or software system in order to
realize it.
4.3. Revolutionary effort
The first key issue on the revolutionary effort is
capturing the scale effect. As pointed out in Section
1, one of the main benefits of CFD that Prof. Dean
Chapman mentioned in the 1970s was the easy
capability to capture the scale effect. However,
CFD research so far has not delivered simulation
methods that accurately simulate flow fields all the
way from very low to very high Reynolds numbers.
With such a capability, CFD would overwhelm
wind tunnel experiments and become a strong tool
in the process of aircraft/spacecraft development as
well as in fluid dynamic research. CFD research so
far has focused on the replacement of a certain part
of wind tunnel experiments and there have been
many articles showing the comparison of CFD
results with experiments. Such activities are neces-
sary (and will be necessary) but do not make use of
an important benefit of CFD. CFD should be able
to do more than wind tunnels. For instance, we
should focus our effort on developing a software
program that can handle a whole range of Reynolds
numbers and demonstrate flow characteristics re-
lated to the scale effect. Development of a perfect
software program is of course impossible. The key
issue on such a program is to capture ‘‘flow
domains’’ with certain clear confidence. Flow fields
change their main feature based on Reynolds
numbers. What is needed is a method and a single
software program that shows the key flow features
for each Reynolds number regime. Such a method
and the corresponding software program can be
developed, although the method to capture laminar
to turbulent transition is still a difficult task.
The second key issue on the revolutionary effort
is ‘‘conceptual design’’. Everybody knows that one
of the key advantages of CFD over EFD is rapid
response with its mobility. It is easy to change body
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
468 K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
geometries and flow configurations by simply
changing input data. In reality, CFD is used in the
preliminary design process of aircraft wings or other
elements in aerospace applications. However, such
CFD use is limited to the problems where a
‘‘concept’’ is fixed, and CFD has been only used
for the configuration update to increase aerody-
namic performance where the basic concept has
been determined. Suppose we live in the period of
the 15th century when Leonardo Da Vinci was alive
and think of flying in air without knowing
aerodynamic theory, we would need to consider
many possibilities of ‘‘wing’’ shapes. We might
consider a flapping wing or a rotating wing. With
CFD technology, we would be able to try many
possibilities without making real physical models,
which would really help the design process. That is
the advantage of CFD. We have seen a lot of CFD
results for conventional wings and body configura-
tions, but we have rarely seen examples of a new
‘‘concept’’ in aerospace applications. CFD is a good
and easy tool when working on a new concept.
There may be a possibility of new concepts even for
current commercial or fighter aircraft. Fig. 19 shows
an example of the Mars airplane. This configuration
was not designed with the sophisticated CFD
software, but can be a good representative of the
target of advanced CFD technologies.
There may be two reasons why CFD has not been
used for the development of new concepts. One
simple reason is that we have little effort. We have
been trying to develop software for more and more
sophisticated disciplines (equations and discretiza-
tion) and apply them to more and more complex
body configurations but have made little effort to
Fig. 19. Example of preliminary design of a Mars airplane (taken
from JAXA’s vision).
use the rather basic disciplines for the rather simple
body configurations. The second reason is a critical
reason; for any CFD simulations, we have to choose
the right modeling and use the right equations based
on our knowledge of fluid dynamics and aerospace
engineering. Even for preliminary conceptual de-
sign, we need to use CFD to capture flow domains
with certain confidence. The methodology and
software tool have not been well established.
Everybody knows that preprocessing of CFD to
create surface and volume grids over body geome-
tries requires both a grid generation specialist and
large amounts of time and human effort. We need
to develop a software tool where we can carry out
flow simulations without much effort. A tool with
which we can simply assemble geometrical elements
by dragging a PC mouse may be a good example. It
also requires a database of geometrical elements for
aircraft and spacecraft.
Since the bottleneck of the time required for the
flow simulation is the heavy requirement for
preparing surface and volume grid data from the
CAD geometry, a revolution may occur here.
Currently, many people try to use Cartesian-type
grids to avoid lengthy and tough body-fitted grid
generation. The difficulty exists in capturing proper
viscous layers over the body surface; but if this is to
be solved, this will totally change CFD simulations
in aerospace [35–39].
Obviously, CFD will not replace the wind tunnel
experiment. CFD and the wind tunnel experiment
will go along side by side. We need to use CFD for
the tasks that are too difficult for the experiments.
That is the key issue for the future prospect of CFD.
5. Conclusions
Historical perspectives of CFD in aerospace in
the last 30 years were given. CFD in aerospace has
been the most prominent engineering area in the
early stages of CFD technology development. In the
1980s and 1990s, a lot of nice ideas came out from
the CFD researchers in aerospace and then they
were spread into other engineering fields. Now, it is
questionable if CFD in aerospace still has such a
leadership in the CFD community, and we need two
kinds of effort: one is an evolutionary effort and the
other is revolutionary effort.
Here is the summary of the key issues for the
evolutionary effort. Even though there appear a lot
of simulations for complex body configurations
nowadays, there still remain quite a few simple
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
problems that are difficult to simulate. There is a
strong shift from RANS simulations to LES and/or
LES/RANS hybrid methods due to the progress of
computer performance and that shift may solve
some of the problems under the current or near-
future computer environment. This is happening
not only because of the progress of computers but
also because of our recognition that separated flows
are inherently unsteady and successful simulations
require LES-like computations.
CFD researchers have been trying to prove the
capability of CFD showing examples for complex
body configurations. However, there may be other
types of research necessary for CFD to become a
really useful tool for design. As one of the
examples, construction of a CFD database was
presented. Another issue was to make a CFD
infrastructure so that people outside the CFD
community may use CFD as a tool to clarify or
refine their ideas.
Here is the summary of the key issues for a
revolutionary effort. Dean Chapman, one of the
pioneers and founders of CFD in aerospace wrote,
in his Opening Remarks in the workshop late in the
1970s, that there are two major motivations behind
CFD and it would not change in coming decades.
They were (1) providing an important new technol-
ogy capability and (2) economics. The issue is true
and much has been realized. However, CFD has not
shown its superiority well to wind tunnel experi-
ments.
We have not found the clear clue for the
revolution of CFD research but that may come
out from considering Prof. Chapmann’s message in
the 1970s. There are two key issues for the
revolutionary effort for the future prospect of
CFD. The first one is that we need to seek CFD
not only to replace wind tunnel experiments but also
to conduct what is difficult for wind tunnels. That is
obviously capturing scale effect. We need to spend
much time for the development of the method and
corresponding software with which researchers can
discuss scale effect. The second one is that we need
to seek the use of CFD for conceptual design. We
need to use CFD for a new concept and the
development of software to support such activity
is anticipated.
The future prospect of CFD really depends on
our evolutionary and revolutionary efforts. I would
like to conclude this article by showing one key
word for the future prospect of CFD, ‘‘wind tunnel
and beyond’’.
469
References
[1] Lynch FT. Chapter II Commercial transports—aerody-
namic design for cruise performance efficiency. In: D.
Nixon, editor. Transonic aerodynamics. Prog Astro Aero
1982;81 [chapter II].
[2] Chapman D. Opening remarks. In: Proceedings of the
workshop on future computer requirements for computa-
tional aerodynamics, NASA CP 2032; 1978.
[3] Committee of AIAA. The year in review: fluid dynamics and
applied aerodynamics. Aerosp Am 1986;December.
[4] Fujii K, Obayashi S. Navier–Stokes simulations of transonic
flows over a practical wing configuration. AIAA J 1987;
25(3):369–70.
[5] Fujii K, Obayashi S. Navier–Stokes simulations of transonic
flows over a wing fuselage combination. AIAA J 1987;
25(12):1587–96.
[6] Murman EM. Challenges in the better, cheaper era of
aeronautical design engineering and manufacturing. In:
Proceedings of the 22nd international congress of aero-
nautical sciences, Harrogate, UK; August 2000 [CD-ROM].
[7] Thomas L, Taylor SL, Anderson WK. Navier–Stokes
computations of vortical flows over low aspect ratio wings.
AIAA paper no. 87-0207; 1987.
[8] Ekaterinaris JA, Schiff LB. Numerical prediction of vortical
flow over slender delta wings. J Aircr 1993;30(6).
[9] Hummel D. On the vortex formation over a slender wing at
large angles of incidence, high angle of attack aerodynamics.
AGARD-CP-247, paper no. 15; 1978.
[10] Fujii K, Gavali S, Hoist TL. Evaluation of Navier–Stokes
and Euler solutions for leading edge separation vortices. Int
J Num Meth Fluids 1988;8(10):1319–29.
[11] Fujii K, Kutler P. Numerical simulation of leading-edge the
separation vortex for a wing and strake-wing configuration.
In: Proceedings of the AIAA sixth computational fluid
dynamics conference, Danvers, MA, USA, July 1983. AIAA
paper no. 83-1908-CP.
[12] Fujii K, Schiff LB. Numerical simulations of vortical flows
over a strake-delta wing. AIAA J 1989;27(9):1153–62.
[13] Horie T, Fujii K, Hattori N. Numerical simulations of
leading-edge separation vortices. In: Proceedings of the
JSASS 15th international sessions in 39th aircraft sympo-
sium incorporating second Japan–Korea aerospace technol-
ogy symposium, 30 October 2001.
[14] Spalart P. Strategies for turbulence modeling and simula-
tions. Int J Heat Fluid Flow 2000;21.
[15] Mellen PC, Frohlich J, Rodi W. Lessons from LESFOIL
project on large-eddy simulation of flow around an airfoil.
AIAA J 2003;41(4):573–81.
[16] Mary I, Sagaut P. Large eddy simulation of flow around an
airfoil near stall. AIAA J 2002;40(6):1139–45.
[17] Dahlstron S, Davidson L. Large eddy simulation of
the flow around an airfoil. AIAA paper no. 2001-0425;
2001.
[18] Spalart PR, Allmaras SR. A one-equation turbulence model
for aerodynamic flows. AIAA paper no. 92-0439; 1992.
[19] Georgiadis NJ, Alexander JID. Reshotko EHybrid Rey-
nolds-averaged Navier–Stokes/large-eddy simulations of
supersonic turbulent mixing. AIAA J 2003;41(2):218–29.
[20] Lele KS. Compact finite difference schemes with spectral-
like resolution. J Comput Phys 1992;103:16–42.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
470 K. Fujii / Progress in Aerospace Sciences 41 (2005) 455–470
[21] McCollough GB, Gault DE. Examples of three representa-
tive types of airfoil-section stall at low speed. NA-
CATN2502; 1951.
[22] McCollough GB, Gault DE. Boundary-layer and stalling
characteristics of the NACA64A006 Airfoil [27] Section.
NACA TNI923; 1949.
[23] Kawai S, Fujii K. Analysis and prediction of thin-airfoil stall
phenomena with hybrid turbulence methodology. AIAA J
2005;43(5):953–61.
[24] Arasawa T, Fujii K, Miyaji K. High-order compact
difference scheme applied to double-delta wing vortical
flows. J Aircr 2004;41(4):953–7.
[25] Mitchell A, Molton P, Barberis D, Delery D. Characteriza-
tion of vortex breakdown by flow field and surface
measurement. AIAA paper no. 2000-0788; 2000.
[26] Mitchell A, Morton S, Forsythe J. Analysis of delta wing
vortical substructures using detached-eddy simulation.
AIAA paper no. 2002-2968; 2002.
[27] Visbal MR, Gordnier GE. On the structure of the shear-
layer emanating from a swept leading edge at angle of
attack. AIAA paper no. 2003-4016; 2003.
[28] Herrin JL, Dutton JC. Supersonic base flow experiments
in the near-wake of a cylindrical afterbody. AIAA J
1994;32(1).
[29] Kawai S, Fujii K. Computational study of a supersonic base
flow using hybrid turbulence methodology. AIAA J 2005;
43(6):1265–75.
[30] Warfield MJ. The year in review, applied aerodynamics.
Aerosp Am 2001;December:12–3.
[31] Fujimoto K, Fujii K. Assessment of CFD estimation of
aerodynamic characteristics of basic reusable rocket config-
urations. Trans Jpn Soc Aeronaut Space Sci 2005;48(159).
[32] Fujimoto K, Fujii K. Computational analysis of the
aerodynamic characteristics of capsule configurations to-
ward the development of reusable rockets. J Spacecr Rockets
2005; to appear.
[33] Tsukada H, Fujimoto K, Nonomura T, Miyaji K, Fujii K.
Numerical analysis of the aerodynamic characteristics of
SSTO configurations with an aerospike nozzle. AIAA paper
no. 2005-1043; 2005.
[34] Fujii K, Miyaji K. WEB-CFD and beyond-CFD for non-
CFD researchers. AIAA paper no. 2002-0753; 2002.
[35] Aftosmis MJ, Berger MJ, Melton JE. Robust and efficient
Cartesian mesh generation for component-based geometry.
AIAA paper no. 97-0196; 1997.
[36] Wang ZJ, Chen RF. Anisotropic solution-adaptive viscous
Cartesian grid method for turbulent flow simulation. AIAA
J 2002;40(10):1969–78.
[37] Rogers SE, Aftosmis MJ, Pandya SA, Chaderjan NM, Tejnil E,
Ahmad JU. Automated CFD parameter studies on distributed
parallel computers.AIAA paper no. 2003-4229; 2003.
[38] Murman SM, Aftosmis MJ, Berger MJ. Implicit approaches
for moving boundaries in a 3-D Cartesian method. AIAA
paper no. 2003-1119; 2003.
[39] Chaderjian NM, Rogers SE, Aftosmis MJ, Pandya SA,
Ahmad JU, Tejnil E. Automated CFD database generation
for a 2nd generation glide-back booster. AIAA paper no.
2003-3788; 2003.