Acutator Disk Boundary Conditions

[stevosg99]

I am working to use actuator disks on a full airplane model and have a few questions about how they are implemented.

Ideally, I would use the variable load actuator (Config File attached) in order to incorporate the effects of swirl, however, implementing it with a full airplane model has led to convergence issues. Running with only the actuator disks in space (no airplane) with identical settings leads to a converged solution. The actuator disk file is attached below as well.

I have run through dozens of different combinations of settings, (turbulence model, convective schemes, linear solvers, inlet turbulence bcs, turbulent initial conditions, etc.,) but it always hits a point where the CFL becomes oscillatory such that convergence can't be reached. I can keep the CFL lower, but then reaching convergence is impractically slow.

I will note that I have run the airplane without the variable load actuators (both with no actuator at all and with the BC_THRUST) and convergence is not an issue.

Any thoughts about what may be causing issues with the variable load disk?

Additionally, could anyone provide more insight as to what is meant by "Takeoff BC thrust" and "Cruise BC thrust" for the BC_Thrust option? If I cannot get the variable load to work, I will fall back to this option, but am unsure exactly how it uses those to inputs to determine a thrust number at a given flight condition.

VariableLoadActuator.txt
2ActuatorDisk_M21.txt