Chimera technique for transporting disturbances

The Chimera technique for moving grids is used to take into account nonhomogeneous unsteady inflow conditions in the simulation of aerodynamic flows. The method is applied to simulate the transport of a large‐scale vortex by a mean velocity field over a large distance, where it finally interacts with an airfoil. The Chimera approach allows one to resolve the vortex on a fine grid, whereas the unstructured background grid covering most of the computational domain can be much coarser. This method shows the same low numerical dissipation as a simulation on a globally fine grid. Several precursor tests are performed with a finite modified analytical Lamb–Oseen type vortex to study the influence of spatial and temporal resolution and the employed numerical scheme. Then, the interaction of an analytical vortex with a NACA0012 airfoil and with an ONERA‐A airfoil near stall is studied. Finally, a realistic vortex is generated by a ramping airfoil and is transported on a moving Chimera block and then interacts with a two‐element airfoil, which allows one to simulate a typical setup for a gust generator in aerodynamic facilities. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.