Vertical Aerospace, a company developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, has adopted Flexcompute‘s Flow360 computational fluid dynamics platform for aerodynamic design work on its Valo aircraft. The workflow was rebuilt around Python API automation, automated meshing, rotor modelling using blade-element-theory disk approaches, and GPU-native computing, aiming to help engineers explore a wider range of design variants within demanding program timelines.
According to the company, Flow360‘s results were benchmarked against physical wind tunnel data, including post-stall conditions, to validate accuracy, supporting both early design screening and high-fidelity, unsteady aerodynamic analysis ahead of certification. The effort underscores the increasing use of computational tools in aerospace engineering.
Image courtesy: Vertical Aerospace