Some Seminal Solutions and Applications

We have discussed the historical evolution of the governing flow equa­tions, the first essential element of CFD. We then discussed the evolu­tion of the high-speed digital computer, the second essential element of CFD. We now come to the crux of this article, the actual CFD flow-field solutions, their evolution, and their importance. Computational fluid dynamics has grown exponentially in the past four decades, render­ing any selective examination of applications problematical. This case study examines four applications that have driven the development of CFD to its present place of prominence: the supersonic blunt body prob­lem, transonic airfoils and wings, Navier-Stokes solutions, and hyper­sonic vehicles.