In this work, the hydrodynamic performance of various fairing designs have been investigated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This paper is divided into two primary sections. The first section involves a thorough sensitivity study to investigate the parameters that are vital in establishing an accurate and robust CFD modeling approach for fairings. The parameters that were investigated during this phase of the work include the mesh density used in the simulations, the blockage ratio (i.e. physical size of the domain that is modeled), the Reynolds Number, and the geometric detail included in the simulations. Upon completion of the sensitivity studies, CFD “best practices” were established. These practices were then applied to a baseline fairing design, and the results were compared against available test data. The CFD approach was shown to predict drag coefficients that agreed with test data within 10% for all cases that were investigated.
The second section of this paper focuses on application of the CFD techniques to evaluate 3 candidate fairing designs. The designs differed in the length and taper angle of the fins. The effect of shortening the fins on straight fin cases had a minor impact on the resulting drag. However, a significant reduction in the drag on the fairings was observed when the fins were tapered inward.
