Variable-fidelity and reduced-order models for aero data for loads predictions

This paper summarizes recent progress in developing metamodels for efficiently predicting the aerodynamic loads acting on industrial aircraft configurations. We introduce a physics-based approach to reduced-order modeling based on proper orthogonal decomposition of snapshots of the full-order CFD model, and a mathematical approach to variable-fidelity modeling that aims at combining many low-fidelity CFD results with as few high-fidelity CFD results as possible using bridge functions and variants of Kriging and Cokriging. In both cases, the goal is to arrive at a model that can be used as an efficient surrogate to the original high-fidelity or full-order CFD model but with significantly less evaluation time and storage requirements. Both approaches are demonstrated on industrial aircraft configurations at subsonic and transonic flow conditions.