NLF Airfoil. Natural laminar flow airfoil validation
The NLF(1)-0412 airfoil is a benchmark for validating boundary-layer transition modeling, critical for predicting laminar flow extent and drag on modern wings. Flow360 is validated across an alpha sweep (-6° to 15°) using Spalart–Allmaras with transition model at Mach 0.1, Re = 4e6. Integrated loads and skin friction distributions are compared against experimental data and reference CFD codes (OVERFLOW, FUN3D).
External reference data
Experiment: Somers, D. M., NASA TP-1861, 1981
OVEFLOW SA-AFT reference data: AIAA 2019-0039
OVERFLOW, FUN3D γ-Reθ reference data: AIAA 2022-3679
OVEFLOW SA-AFT reference data: AIAA 2019-0039
OVERFLOW, FUN3D γ-Reθ reference data: AIAA 2022-3679
Validation plots
Comparison of Flow360 predictions against reference data. Click an image to expand.
CL vs α — SA-AFT vs experiment
Drag polar — CL vs CD
Cf vs x/c — α = 5°
Solver performance
Steady SA-AFT simulation at Mach 0.1, Re = 4e6, and alpha = 5 deg.
Mesh resolution
2.13 M nodes
Cloud cost
3.8 FC
Time to solution
5.9 min
Hardware
8 × H200 GPUs
Run Settings
Simulation type
Steady
Time settings
20,000 iterations