Aircraft dynamic stability derivatives via steady-state CFD

Abstract

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to The Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering 2025.The aircraft flying qualities are assessed during preliminary design phases through dynamic stability derivatives and an adequate accuracy is necessary to avoid costly fixes after flight testing. The dynamic stability derivatives estimation process uses unsteady CFD or dynamic data acquisition in wind tunnel testing, but both are very expensive. However, using the Navier–Stokes equations rewritten in non-inertial reference frame embedded in a CFD software it is possible to estimate dynamic aerodynamic coefficients using steady-state CFD, which is demonstrated in the present work with adequate accuracy for both 2D and 3D study cases.

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