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Delay or control of flow separation for enhanced aerodynamic performance using an effective morphed surface

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Abstract

This paper investigates an improvement of the aerodynamic performance of a wing at high, including post-stall angles of attack by re-designing its camber line to control the separation of its boundary layer. This is experimentally implemented using an Aluminum secondary skin on the wing surface, which aligns itself to the separated boundary layer at high angles to attack, such that the flow remains attached to it, which otherwise would have separated on the baseline configuration. The shape of the skin, which is now regarded as the active flow surface, is essentially a morphed version of the baseline shape of the wing and is predicted numerically using an in-house code based on a ‘decambering’ technique that accounts for the local deviation of camber by accounting for the difference in the coefficients of lift and pitching moment predicted by viscous and potential flows. This technique is tested on a rectangular planform using different wing sections, NACA0012, NACA4415, and NRELS809. The effective morphed flow surface is also used for the baseline wing to operate at a design local 2D \(C_l\), which is obtained by incrementing the baseline \(C_l\) by a user defined percentage at design pre and post-stall angles of attack. Aerodynamic characteristics of the effective morphed configurations using numerical analysis, CFD, and wind tunnel experiments are reported.

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Abbreviations

\(C_L, C_M, {C_D}_i,C_P\) :

Coefficients of lift, pitching moment, induced drag, pressure of wing

\(\alpha \), \(\alpha _{C_{L=0}}\) :

Angle of attack and zero-lift angle of attack

\(\Delta {C_l}, \Delta {C_m}\) :

Difference between viscous and potential values

\(\delta _1\), \(\delta _2\) :

Decambering functions

\((x_1, x_2)\) :

Cartesian locations of \(\delta _1\) and \(\delta _2\)

\( {\alpha ,AoA}\) :

Angle of attack

x/C :

Axial distance over airfoil section axial chord

AR :

Aspect ratio

Root :

Span-wise mid/symmetry plane section of the wing

\(3D,2D\,\,C_l\) :

Three-dimensional and two-dimensional lift coefficient

CFD :

Computational Fluid Dynamics

NACA :

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics

NREL :

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Center of Propulsion Technologies, Defence Research and Development Organisation, India (DRDO/DFTM/04/3304/PC/02/776/D(R&D)) for funding the research of PhD Scholar, Mr. Aritras Roy.

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  1. Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, 600036, India

    Aritras Roy & Rinku Mukherjee

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Roy, A., Mukherjee, R. Delay or control of flow separation for enhanced aerodynamic performance using an effective morphed surface. Acta Mech 233, 1543–1566 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-022-03165-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-022-03165-y

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