MATPAN2D -- Matlab Panel Code 2D

MATPAN2D is an attempt to create a fast, simple, and hackable design tool for interesting aerodynamic phenemona. These include power-effects, inteference between bodies, etc.

MATPAN2D is released under the MIT License.

Rob McDonald

What is MATPAN2D?

Suite of tools for aerodynamic analysis and design of concepts with propulsion and/or interaction
Mix of custom-developed and off-the-shelf code
Simplifications aggressively accepted/pursued
- Capture essential physics
- Speed development & execution
- Reduce design space
- Clarify concept benefits or drawbacks
Informed design preferred to optimization
2D Axisymmetric panel code (planar eventually)
- Lumped ring-vortex with Dirichlet BC (V=0 on surface)
- Based on: R. I. Lewis, Vortex Element Methods for fluid Dynamic Analysis of Engineering Systems , 1991
Actuator disk
- Uniform loading, no swirl, contracted streamtube
- Ducted -- zero or large tip-gap (> Rd/10) can be modeled
Flexible & Fast
- Custom Matlab implementation
- Arbitrary combinations of bodies, ducts & disks
- NACA 4-Digit duct generated on-the-fly
- ~0.1 to 3 seconds for solution, ~10-15 seconds for visualization
Compressibility Correction
- Gothert's Rule w/ NRL Semi-empirical correction

Planned Work

Compressibility Correction -- Gothert's Rule
BL2D Integration
- NASA-TM-83207 Harris & Blanchard 1982
- Loose coupling
  - Prescribed inviscid pressure distributions
- Strong coupling (may be possible / Planned)
  - Momentum thickness feedback to inviscid solver
  - Converge on combined viscous/inviscid flow
Design (Planned)
- Inviscid inverse design
- Inviscid general pressure distribution matching
- Design pressure distribution to tailor boundary layer

Compressibility Correction

Gothert's Rule w/ NRL Semi-empirical correction for bodies used to recover Cp.
Notes:
- Used equations 1 & 27-29.
- u, v, w are perturbation velocities
- U=1 assumed.
Th. E. Labrujere, W. Loeve, and J. W. Slooff, An Approximate Method for the Calculation of the Pressure Distribution on Wing-Body Combinations at Subcritical Speeds, National Aerospace Laboratory NLR, Amsterdam Netherlands, 1971, in AGARD-CP-71.