Numerical study of airfoil with wavy leading edge at high Reynolds number regime
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.redin.20200474Keywords:
wavy leading edge airfoil, CFD analysis, RANS simulationAbstract
In this work, a numerical study of flow around an airfoil with wavy leading Edge is presented at a Reynolds number of 3X106. The flow is resolved by considering the RANS (Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes) equations. The baseline geometry is based on the NACA 0021 profile. The wavy leading edge has an amplitude of 3% and wavelength of 11%, both with respect to the airfoil chord. Cases without and with wavy leading edges are simulated and compared. Initially, studies of the numerical sensitivity with respect to the obtained results, considering aspects such as turbulence modeling and mesh refinement, are carried out as well as by comparison with corresponding results in the literature. Numerical data such as pressure distribution, shear stress lines on the wing surface, and aerodynamics coefficients are used to describe and investigate the flow features around the wavy leading airfoil. Comparisons between the straight leading edge and the wavy leading edge cases shows an increase of the maximum lift coefficient as well as stall angle for the wavy leading edge configuration. In addition, at an angle of attack near the stall, the present numerical results shows an increase of the drag coefficient with the wavy leading edge airfoil when compared with the corresponding straight leading edge case.
Downloads
References
S. N. Joshi and Y. S. Gujarathi, “A review on active and passive flow control techniques,” International Journal on Recent Technologies in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 01–06, Apr. 2016.
D. M. Bushnell and K. J. Moore, “Drag reduction in nature,” Annual review of fluid mechanics, vol. 23, no. 1, 1991. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.fl.23.010191.000433
P. Watts and F. E. Fish, “The influence of passive, leading edge tubercles on wing performance,” in 12th International Symposium on Unmanned Untethered Submersible Technology, Durham, USA, 2001.
D. Miklosovic, M. Murray, L. Howle, and F. Fish, “Leading-edge tubercles delay stall on humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) flippers,” Physics of fluids, vol. 16, no. 5, 2004. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1688341
H. Johari, C. W. Henoch, D. Custodio, and A. Levshin, “Effects of leading-edge protuberances on airfoil performance,” AIAA journal, vol. 45, no. 11, November 2007. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.2514/1.28497
M. J. Stanway, “Hydrodynamic effects of leading-edge tubercles on control surfaces and in flapping foil propulsion,” M.S. thesis, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2008.
J. Chen, S. Li, and V. Nguyen, “The effect of leading edge protuberances on the performance of small aspect ratio foils,” in 15th International Symposium on Flow Visualization, Minsk, Belarus, 2012, pp. 25–28.
K. Natarajan, S. Sudhakar, and S. Paulpandian, “Experimental studies on the effect of leading edge tubercles on laminar separation bubble,” in 52nd Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 2014, p. 1279.
I. Rohmawati, H. Arai, T. Nakashima, H. Mutsuda, and Y. Doi, “Effect of wavy leading edge on pitching rectangular wing,” Journal of Aero Aqua Bio-mechanisms, vol. 9, no. 1, January 2020. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.5226/jabmech.9.1
P. Lissaman, “Low-reynolds-number airfoils,” Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, vol. 15, pp. 223–239, 1983.
T. T. Abrantes, A. A. Ríos, A. A. de Paula, V. G. Kleine, and F. Büttner, “The wing three-dimensional effects on wavy leading edge performance,” in 35th AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference, Denver, Colorado, 2017.
A. A. de Paula, “The airfoil thickness effects on wavy leading edge phenomena at low reynolds number regime,” Ph. D. dissertation, Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 2016.
A. A. de Paula, A. A. Rios Cruz, P. H. Ferreira, V. G. Kleine, and R. G. da Silva, “Swept wing effects on wavy leading edge phenomena,” in 2018 Flow Control Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 2018.
A. A. de Paula, J. Meneghini, V. G. Kleine, and R. D. Girardi, “The wavy leading edge performance for a very thick airfoil,” in 55th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Grapevine, Texas, 2017.
K. L. Hansen, “Effect of leading edge tubercles on airfoil performance,” Ph. D. dissertation, School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia, 2012.
Z. Xingwei, Z. Chaoying, Z. Tao, and J. Wenying, “Numerical study on effect of leading-edge tubercles,” Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 85, no. 4, June 2013. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-Feb-2012-0027
J. Favier, A. Pinelli, and U. Piomelli, “Control of the separated flow around an airfoil using a wavy leading edge inspired by humpback whale flippers,” Comptes Rendus Mecanique, vol. 340, no. 1-2, January 2012. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crme.2011.11.004
A. Skillen, A. Revell, A. Pinelli, U. Piomelli, and J. Favier, “Flow over a wing with leading-edge undulations,” AIAA Journal, vol. 53, no. 2, February 2014. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.2514/1.J053142
N. Rostamzadeh, R. Kelso, B. Dally, and K. Hansen, “The effect of undulating leading-edge modifications on naca 0021 airfoil characteristics,” Physics of fluids, vol. 25, no. 11, 2013. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4828703
M. D. Bolzon, R. M. Kelso, and M. Arjomandi, “Tubercles and their applications,” Journal of Aerospace Engineering, vol. 29, no. 1, April 2015. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0000491
H. K. Versteeg and W. Malalasekera, An introduction to computational fluid dynamics: the finite volume method, 2nd ed. Pearson Education Limited, 2007.
L. Davidson. (2015, Mar. 23) Fluid mechanics, turbulent flow and turbulence modeling. [Online]. Available: https://bit.ly/3eAW2JG
B. Lauder and B. Sharma, “Application of the energy-dissipation model of turbulence to the calculation of flow near a spinning disc”, Letters in Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 1, no. 2, November 1974. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1016/0094-4548(74)90150-7
B. E. Launder and D. B. Spalding, “The numerical computation of turbulent flows,” Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, vol. 3, no. 2, March 1974. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1016/0045-7825(74)90029-2
P. Spalart and S. Allmaras, “A one-equation turbulence model for aerodynamic flows,” in 30th aerospace sciences meeting and exhibit, 1992, p. 439.
M. Drela, “XFOIL: An analysis and design system for low Reynolds number airfoils,” in Low Reynolds number aerodynamics, 1989, pp. 1–12.
F. A. Rocha, A. A. de Paula, M. D. Sousa, A. V. Cavalieri, and V. G. Kleine, “Lift enhancement by wavy leading edges at reynolds numbers between 700,000 and 3,000,000,” in 2018 Applied Aerodynamics Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 2018.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Revista Facultad de Ingeniería Universidad de Antioquia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Revista Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Antioquia is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.en
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
The material published in the journal can be distributed, copied and exhibited by third parties if the respective credits are given to the journal. No commercial benefit can be obtained and derivative works must be under the same license terms as the original work.
Twitter