TLG presented at AIAA SciTech 2025
Peter Burns presented a paper “Automated Method for Rapid Estimation of Aeroelastic Wing Shapes – TLG StarBeam” at AIAA SciTech on January 7, 2025. which he co-authored with Andrew McComas and Andy Magstadt. The topic was TLG Aerospace’s internally developed code ‘StarBeam’ which brings aeroelastic capability within our workhorse CFD code Star-CCM+.
StarBeam couples a structural solver and a mapping algorithm using a STAR-CCM+ macro capability. The structural solver calculates deformations under load and the mapping algorithm transfers those deformations to the CFD grid in a physically realistic way. The CFD solution provides results for the deformed structure and the solution iterates to convergence.
The tool was developed by and for our TLG industry aerodynamicists and structural dynamics experts and contains useful features often unavailable in other tools and codes. These capabilities help TLG efficiently and accurately drive our analysis and engineering evaluations for customer programs:
- Ideal for early stages of a project
- Elastic wing shape is needed to enable structural design and inform CFD and wind tunnel models
- Calibrated aeroelastic model may not exist yet
- Beam properties or stiffness matrix from higher-order FEM
- Loads Reference Axis (LRA), approximate rib plane locations and orientations, incremental fuel load
- Splining is fully automatic and robust
- Appendages rigidly translate and rotate about their attachments
- Performs fully non-linear large deflections process in a single execution
- Classical methods require manual iteration of the model to address large deformations
It’s terrific we spoke on this particular effort and highlighted some of the great work TLG brings to the engineering world. Thank you to Peter for presenting, to Andrew, Peter, and Andy for writing the paper, and to everyone who helped put this process together and use it—and our other tools—every day.
The paper was well received at the conference and we look forward to continuing discussions.
Please connect with our authors: Andrew McComas, Dr. Peter Burns, and Andy Magstadt.
Robert Lind
Director of Engineering
#TLGAerospace | #EngineeringExcellence | #AIAASciTech | #Aerodynamics | #Aeroelasticity | #CFD
