Transonic Aeroelastic Modeling of the NACA 0012 Benchmark Wing

This work considers aeroelastic modeling of the NACA 0012 benchmark wing, a configuration previously tested in the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel for flutter. Numerical modeling is conducted within the FUN3D Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes–based flow solver, with a particular focus on multiscale mesh adaptation and linearized frequency domain computations. Flutter results are obtained and compared with experimental data across a range of flow complexities, including subsonic flows, transonic flows with mild nonlinearities, and separated transonic flows. A reasonable correlation with test data is obtained for the first two categories, but only mixed results are shown for the third category. In all cases, insight into the transonic flutter behavior is obtained via the generalized aerodynamic forces computed through flow linearizations.