TSFOIL AIM Overview

A module in the Computational Aircraft Prototype Syntheses (CAPS) has been developed to interact (through input files) with the transonic airfoil analysis tool TSFOIL. TSFOIL can be downloaded from http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/Mason_f/MRsoft.html .

Note: In the tsfoil2.f file is may be necessary to comment out line 38 - "USE DFPORT"

An outline of the AIM's inputs and outputs are provided in AIM Inputs and AIM Outputs, respectively.

Upon running preAnalysis the AIM generates two files: 1. "tsfoilInput.txt" which contains instructions for TSFOIL to execute and 2. "caps.tsfoil" which contains the geometry to be analyzed. The TSFOIL AIM can automatically execute TSFOIL, with details provided in AIM Execution.

Assumptions

TSFOIL inherently assumes the airfoil cross-section is in the x-y plane, if it isn't an attempt is made to automatically rotate the provided body.

Airfoils in ESP

Within OpenCSM there are a number of airfoil generation UDPs (User Defined Primitives). These include NACA 4 series, a more general NACA 4/5/6 series generator, Sobieczky's PARSEC parameterization and Kulfan's CST parameterization. All of these UDPs generate EGADS FaceBodies where the Face's underlying Surface is planar and the bounds of the Face is a closed set of Edges whose underlying Curves contain the airfoil shape.

Important Airfoil Geometry Assumptions

There must be a Node that represents the Leading Edge point
For a sharp trailing edge, there must be a Nodes at the Trailing Edge
For a blunt trailing edge, the airfoil curve may be open, or closed by a single Edge connecting the upper/lower Nodes
For a FaceBody, the airfoil coordinates traverse counter-clockwise around the Face normal. The OpenCSM REORDER operation may be used to flip the Face normal.
For a WireBody, the airfoil coordinates traverse in the order of the loop

Note: Additional spurious Nodes on the upper and lower Edges of the airfoil are acceptable.

Table of Contents

TSFOIL AIM Overview

Assumptions

Airfoils in ESP