Aerodynamic and hydraulic networks

Aerodynamic and hydraulic networks are solved separately from the structural equation system. This is because networks generally lead to small sets of equations (at most a couple of thousand equations) which are inherently asymmetric. If solved together with the structural system, the small network contribution would lead to a complete asymmetric matrix and increase the computational time significantly. Moreover, especially aerodynamic networks are very nonlinear and require more iterations than structural nonlinearities. Consequently, the small network contribution would also lead to a lot more iterations. Therefore, the matrices of networks are set up and solved on their own taking the structural solution from the previous structural iteration as boundary condition. In a similar way, the network solution acts as boundary condition for the next structural iteration.



Subsections