Lift enhancement and flow structure of airfoil with joint trailing-edge flap and Gurney flap

The impact of Gurney flaps (GF), of different heights and perforations, on the aerodynamic and wake characteristics of a NACA 0015 airfoil equipped with a trailing-edge flap (TEF) was investigated experimentally at Re = 2.54 × 10⁵. The addition of the Gurney flap to the TEF produced a further increase in the downward turning of the mean flow (increased aft camber), leading to a significant increase in the lift, drag, and pitching moment compared to that produced by independently deployed TEF or GF. The maximum lift increased with flap height, with the maximum lift-enhancement effectiveness exhibited at the smallest flap height. The near wake behind the joint TEF and GF became wider and had a larger velocity deficit and fluctuations compared to independent GF and TEF deployment. The Gurney flap perforation had only a minor impact on the wake and aerodynamics characteristics compared to TEF with a solid GF. The rapid rise in lift generation of the joint TEF and GF application, compared to conventional TEF deployment, could provide an improved off-design high-lift device during landing and takeoff.     

Effects of Gurney Flaps on a NACA0012 Airfoil

Experimental measurements of surface pressure distributions and wake profiles were obtained for a NACA0012 airfoil to determine the lift, drag, and pitching-moment coefficients for various configurations. The addition of a Gurney flap increased the maximum lift coefficient from 1.37 to 1.74, however there was a drag increment at low-to-moderate lift coefficient. In addition, the boundary layer profile measurements were taken using a rake of total pressure probes at the 90% chord location on the suction side. The effective Gurney flap height is about 2% of chord length, which provides the highest lift-to-drag ratio among the investigated configurations when compared with the clean NACA0012 airfoil. In this case, the device remains within the boundary layer. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Time resolved PIV analysis of flow over a NACA 0015 airfoil with Gurney flap

A NACA 0015 airfoil with and without a Gurney flap was studied in a wind tunnel with Re _c = 2.0 × 10⁵ in order to examine the evolving flow structure of the wake through time-resolved PIV and to correlate this structure with time-averaged measurements of the lift coefficient. The Gurney flap, a tab of small length (1–4% of the airfoil chord) that protrudes perpendicular to the chord at the trailing edge, yields a significant and relatively constant lift increment through the linear range of the C _L versus α curve. Two distinct vortex shedding modes were found to exist and interact in the wake downstream of flapped airfoils. The dominant mode resembles a Kàrmàn vortex street shedding behind an asymmetric bluff body. The second mode, which was caused by the intermittent shedding of fluid recirculating in the cavity upstream of the flap, becomes more coherent with increasing angle of attack. For a 4% Gurney flap at α = 8°, the first and second modes corresponded with Strouhal numbers based on flap height of 0.18 and 0.13. Comparison of flow around ‘filled’ and ‘open’ flap configurations suggested that the second shedding mode was responsible for a significant portion of the overall lift increment.     

High-lift airfoil trailing edge separation control using a single dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator

Control of flow separation from the deflected flap of a high-lift airfoil up to Reynolds numbers of 240,000 (15 m/s) is explored using a single dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator near the flap shoulder. Results show that the plasma discharge can increase or reduce the size of the time-averaged separated region over the flap depending on the frequency of actuation. High-frequency actuation, referred to here as quasi-steady forcing, slightly delays separation while lengthening and flattening the separated region without drastically increasing the measured lift. The actuator is found to be most effective for increasing lift when operated in an unsteady fashion at the natural oscillation frequency of the trailing edge flow field. Results indicate that the primary control mechanism in this configuration is an enhancement of the natural vortex shedding that promotes further momentum transfer between the freestream and separated region. Based on these results, different modulation waveforms for creating unsteady DBD plasma-induced flows are investigated in an effort to improve control authority. Subsequent measurements show that modulation using duty cycles of 50–70% generates stronger velocity perturbations than sinusoidal modulation in quiescent conditions at the expense of an increased power requirement. Investigation of these modulation waveforms for trailing edge separation control similarly shows that additional increases in lift can be obtained. The dependence of these results on the actuator carrier and modulation frequencies is discussed in detail.     

Particle image velocimetry investigation of flow over unsteady airfoil with trailing-edge strip

The flow over a flapped NACA 0012 airfoil, oscillated slightly through the static-stall angle, was investigated by using particle image velocimetry, and was supplemented by surface pressure and dynamic-load measurements. A significant increase in the dynamic lift force and nose-down pitching moment was observed. The most pronounced flow phenomenon was the formation and detachment of an energetic leading-edge vortex compared to the no-flapped airfoil. The details of the underlying physical mechanisms responsible for the various light-stall flow processes were provided via the instantaneous velocity and vorticity fields measurements. In contrast to the Gurney flap, the inverted trailing-edge strip led to an improved negative damping while a reduced lift force. The addition of an inverted strip always led to the appearance of a Karman-type vortex shedding street immediately downstream of the strip over the entire oscillation cycle.     

Dynamical mode decomposition of Gurney flap wake flow

The present work uses dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) to analyze wake flow of NACA0015 airfoil with Gurney flap. The physics of DMD is first introduced. Then the PIV-measured wake flow velocity field is decomposed into dynamical modes. The vortex shedding pattern behind the trailing edge and its high-order harmonics have been captured with abundant information such as frequency, wavelength and convection speed. It is observed that high-order dynamic modes convect faster than low-order modes; moreover the wavelength of the dynamic modes scales with the corresponding frequency in power law.     

Effects of Gurney flaps on the lift enhancement of a cropped nonslender delta wing

An experimental wind-tunnel investigation was undertaken to determine the effects of Gurney flaps on a 40-deg cropped nonslender delta wing at a chord Reynolds number of 250,000. In the experiment, the height of the Gurney flaps was varied from 0.01C to 0.05C, and the sideslip angle of the model was selected as 0, 5, 10 and 20 deg. In addition, the 0.05C Gurney flap was serrated with different heights of 0.01C to 0.05C separately. In comparison with the baseline clean configuration results, it was found that the model with plate Gurney flaps can indeed increase the lift-to-drag ratio at moderate-to-high lift coefficients for the wing, and the greatest increment was obtained for the 0.01C Gurney flap. The effect of Gurney flap on the increment of lift-to-drag ratio tends to be not significant with the increase of sideslip angle. Moreover, the 0.05C serrated Gurney flap provides the best performance among the serrated Gurney flaps. Received: 6 July 2000 / Accepted: 21 June 2001 Published online: 29 November 2001     

Plunging wake analysis of an airfoil equipped with a Gurney flap

Experimental Techniques - Experimental measurements were conducted on a plunging Eppler 361 Gurney flapped airfoil to study wake structure and dynamic stall phenomenon in the wake. The heights of...     

Duty cycle and directional jet effects of a plasma actuator on the flow control around a NACA0015 airfoil

This paper reports on the effects of a series of fluid-dynamic dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators on a NACA0015 airfoil at high angle of attack. A set of jet actuators able to produce plasma jets with different directions (vectoring effect) and operated at different on/off duty cycle frequencies are used. The experiments are performed in a wind tunnel facility. The vectorized jet and the transient of the flow induced by unsteady duty cycle operation of each actuator are examined and the effectiveness of the actuator to recover stall condition in the range of Reynolds numbers between 1.0 × 10⁵ and 5.0 × 10⁵ (based on airfoil chord), is investigated. The actuator placed on the leading edge of the airfoil presents the most effective stall recovery. No significant effects can be observed for different orientations of the jet. An increase of the stall recovery is detected when the actuator is operated in unsteady operation mode. Moreover, the frequency of the on/off duty cycle that maximizes the stall recovery is found to be a function of the free stream velocity. This frequency seems to scale with the boundary layer thickness at the position of the actuator. A lift coefficient increase at low free stream velocities appears to linearly depend on the supply voltage.     

低雷诺数俯仰振荡翼型等离子体流动控制

针对低雷诺数翼型气动性能差的特点, 通过介质阻挡放电(dielectric barrier discharge, DBD)等离子体激励控制的方法, 提高翼型低雷诺数下的气动特性,改善其流场结构. 采用二维准直接数值模拟方法求解非定常不可压Navier-Stokes方程,对具有俯仰运动的NACA0012翼型的低雷诺数流动展开数值模拟.同时将介质阻挡放电激励对流动的作用以彻体力源项的形式加入Navier-Stokes方程,通过数值模拟探究稳态DBD等离子体激励对俯仰振荡NACA0012翼型气动特性和流场特性的影响.为了进行流动控制, 分别在上下表面的前缘和后缘处安装DBD等离子体激励器,并提出四种激励器的开环控制策略,通过对比研究了这些控制策略在不同雷诺数、不同减缩频率以及激励位置下的控制效果.通过流场结构和动态压强分析了等离子体进行流场控制的机理. 结果表明,前缘DBD控制中控制策略B(负攻角时开启上表面激励器,正攻角时开启下表面激励器)效果最好,后缘DBD控制中控制策略C(逆时针旋转时开启上表面激励器,顺时针旋转时开启下表面激励器)效果最好,前缘DBD控制效果会随着减缩频率的增大而下降, 同时会导致阻力增大.而后缘DBD控制可以减小压差阻力, 优于前缘DBD控制,对于计算的所有减缩频率(5.01~11.82)都有较好的增升减阻效果.在不同雷诺数下, DBD控制的增升效果较为稳定, 而减阻效果随着雷诺数的降低而变差,这是由流体黏性效应增强导致的.      

Effect of vortex shedding in unsteady aerodynamic forces for a low Reynolds number stationary wing at low angle of attack

This study elucidates the relation between wake vortex shedding and aerodynamic force fluctuations for a low Reynolds number wing from time resolved particle image velocimetry (TR-PIV) experimental measurements. The results reveal a periodic lift and drag variation within the shedding cycle and resolve the frequencies of those fluctuations from a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and power spectral density (PSD) analysis. To show the effect of vortex shedding on the body force fluctuations, the evolution of instantaneous aerodynamic forces is compared to the pressure field of the fluid flow and to the vortical structures in the wake of the airfoil. A six step model describing the vortex-force relation is proposed. It shows that changes in lift such as maximum lift and minimum lift are associated with the detachment of a vortex. It also shows that the minimum or local minimum drag value is obtained at the onset formation of a vortex on the airfoil wake. Similarly, the maximum or local maximum drag is obtained at the onset formation of the saddle on the airfoil wake. The model further explains the asymmetry observed in the unsteady drag force evolution. The model can be used to optimize flow control and fluid-structure interaction applications.     

Turbulent separated flow over and downstream of a two-element airfoil

Flow characteristics in the vicinity of the flap of a single-slotted airfoil are presented and analysed. The flow remained attached over the model surfaces except in the vicinity of the flap trailing edge where a small region of boundary-layer separation extended over the aft 7% of flap chord. The airfoil configuration was tested at a Mach number of 0.09 and a chord Reynolds number of 1.8 × 10⁶ in the NASA Ames Research Center 7- by 10-Foot Wind Tunnel. The flow was complicated by the presence of a strong, initially inviscid, jet, emanating from the slot between airfoil and flap, and a gradual merging of the main airfoil wake and flap suction-side boundary layer.Research Engineer, NRC Research AssociateAerospace Engineer     

LES of transient flows controlled by DBD plasma actuator over a stalled airfoil

Large-eddy simulations (LES) are employed to understand the flow field over a NACA 0015 airfoil controlled by a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator. The Suzen body force model is utilised to introduce the effect of the DBD plasma actuator. The Reynolds number is fixed at 63,000. Transient processes arising due to non-dimensional excitation frequencies of one and six are discussed. The time required to establish flow authority is between four and six characteristic times, independent of the excitation frequency. If the separation is suppressed, the initial flow conditions do not affect the quasi-steady state, and the lift coefficient of the higher frequency case converges very quickly. The transient states can be categorised into following three stages: (1) the lift and drag decreasing stage, (2) the lift recovery stage, and (3) the lift and drag converging stage. The development of vortices and their influence on control is delineated. The simulations show that in the initial transient state, separation of flow suppression is closely related to the development spanwise vortices while during the later, quasi-steady state, three-dimensional vortices become more important.     

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON LIFT INCREMENT OF A PLASMA CIRCULATION CONTROL AIRFOIL

利用等离子体激励器发展了新型的环量增升技术,并对二维NACA0012翼型绕流实施控制。由于NACA0012翼型为尖后缘构型,环量增升装置由2个非对称型介质阻挡放电等离子体激励器构成。一个等离子体激励器贴附于翼型吸力面靠近后缘处,其诱导的壁面射流沿来流方向指向下游;另一个等离子体激励器贴附于翼型压力面靠近后缘处,其诱导的壁面射流与来流方向相反指向上游。在风洞中通过时间解析二维PIV系统对翼型绕流流场进行了测量,基于翼型弦长的雷诺数Re=20 000。结果表明在等离子体激励器的控制下,翼型压力面靠近后缘处可以形成一个定常回流区,从而起到虚拟气动外形的作用,因此翼型吸力面的流场得到加速,压力面的流场得到减速,使得翼型压力面的吸力以及压力面的压力都得到增加,进而增加了翼型的环量。风洞天平测力实验进一步验证了该环量增升技术的有效性。在整个攻角范围内,施加控制的翼型的升力系数相比没有控制的工况有明显的提高。     

Pressure Improvement on a Supercritical High-Lift Wing Using Simple and Modulated Pulse Jet Vortex Generator

In this paper, an experimental study, aimed at delaying flow separation on a high-lift device using a pulsed blowing excitation method, is reported. The main objective of this investigation was to evaluate a new pulsed jet generation strategy to enhance flow control performance. In these experiments, two types of signal waveform were implemented to produce the unsteady blowing; a simple square-wave excitation signal for the first case, and a burst modulated excitation signal for the second case. The signal modulation was the first time to be used for a fast-switching solenoid valve actuator. Another objective of this study was to evaluate a new arrangement of the jet exit slots, in the form of a vortex generator which was employed for the first time on the high-lift device. For this purpose, a NASA SC(2)-0714 airfoil with a single slotted flap was employed. The vortex generator jets emanated from the shoulder of the trailing-edge flap with excitation frequencies from 40 to 1000 Hz. Pressure distribution around the model and wake total pressure deficit were measured. The results indicated that ejection from vortex generator slot pairs was able to prevent flow separation completely in most conditions. These measurements revealed that the burst modulated excitation signal was accompanied by more aerodynamic improvements and less air consumption relative to the simple pulsed jet excitation signal. In the best flow control mode, the results showed about a 53% increase in the value of the suction pressure peak on the flap and a 38% decrease in drag with a reduction in total pressure loss.

     

Effects of a trapped vortex cell on a thick wing airfoil

The effects of a trapped vortex cell (TVC) on the aerodynamic performance of a NACA0024 wing model were investigated experimentally at Re = 10⁶ and 6.67×10⁵6.67\times 10^{5}. The static pressure distributions around the model and the wake velocity profiles were measured to obtain lift and drag coefficients, for both the clean airfoil and the controlled configurations. Suction was applied in the cavity region to stabilize the trapped vortex. For comparison, a classical boundary layer suction configuration was also tested. The drag coefficient curve of the TVC-controlled airfoil showed sharp discontinuities and bifurcative behavior, generating two drag modes. A strong influence of the angle of attack, the suction rate and the Reynolds number on the drag coefficient was observed. With respect to the clean airfoil, the control led to a drag reduction only if the suction was high enough. Compared to the classical boundary layer suction configuration, the drag reduction was higher for the same amount of suction only in a specific range of incidence, i.e., α = −2° to α = 6° and only for the higher Reynolds number. For all the other conditions, the classical boundary layer suction configuration gave better drag performances. Moderate increments of lift were observed for the TVC-controlled airfoil at low incidence, while a 20% lift enhancement was observed in the stall region with respect to the baseline. However, the same lift increments were also observed for the classical boundary layer suction configuration. Pressure fluctuation measurements in the cavity region suggested a very complex interaction of several flow features. The two drag modes were characterized by typical unsteady phenomena observed in rectangular cavity flows, namely the shear layer mode and the wake mode.     

PIV study of near-field tip vortex behind perforated Gurney flaps

The impact of Gurney flaps, of different heights and perforations, on the growth and development of a tip vortex, both along the tip and in the near field of a finite NACA 0012 wing, at Re = 1.05 × 10⁵ was investigated by using particle image velocimetry (PIV). Wind-tunnel force balance measurements were also made to supplement the PIV results. This study is a continuation of the work of Lee and Ko (Exp Fluids 46(6):1005–1019, 2009) on the near-wake measurements behind perforated Gurney flaps. The present results show that along the tip, the overall behavior of the secondary vortices and their interaction with the primary, or tip, vortex remained basically unchanged, regardless of flap height and perforation. The peak vorticity of the tip vortex, however, increased with flap height and always exhibited a local maximum at x/c = 0.8 (from the leading edge). In the near field, the strength and structure of the near-field tip vortex were found to vary greatly with the flap height and perforation. The small flaps produced a more concentrated tip vortex with an increased circulation, while the large Gurney flaps caused a disruption of the tip vortex. The disrupted vortex can, however, be re-established by the addition of flap perforation. The larger the flap perforation the more organized the tip vortex. The Gurney flaps have the potential to serve as an alternative off-design wake vortex control device.     

振动翼型和襟翼的绕流特性研究

用数值模拟手段详细地研究了振动翼型和襟翼的绕流问题,数值模拟的出发方程为Euler和N-S方程,格式为Bcam-Warming格式的改进型。数值实验主要针对流场的二大特性进行的,即振动对激波的影响和振动对分离的抑制作用,结果表明:(1)随翼型或襟翼的振动激波强度和位置也相应地变化但这一变化滞后于攻角的变化;(2)振幅加大激波强度的变化和激波运动范围也加大;(3)振动频率越高对激波的影响反而较低频时要小;(4)流动条件的不同可使升力回线的走向发生变化;(5)振动对分离有明显的抑制作用。     

Effect of boundary representation on viscous,separated flows in a discontinuous-Galerkin Navier–Stokes solver

The effect of curved-boundary representation on the physics of the separated flow over a NACA 65(1)-412 airfoil is thoroughly investigated. A method is presented to approximate curved boundaries with a high-order discontinuous-Galerkin spectral element method for the solution of the Navier–Stokes equations. Multiblock quadrilateral element meshes are constructed with the grid generation software GridPro. The boundary of a NACA 65(1)-412 airfoil, defined by a cubic natural spline, is piecewise-approximated by isoparametric polynomial interpolants that represent the edges of boundary-fitted elements. Direct numerical simulation of the airfoil is performed on a coarse mesh and fine mesh with polynomial orders ranging from four to twelve. The accuracy of the curve fitting is investigated by comparing the flows computed on curved-sided meshes with those given by straight-sided meshes. Straight-sided meshes yield irregular wakes, whereas curved-sided meshes produce a regular Karman street wake. Straight-sided meshes also produce lower lift and higher viscous drag as compared with curved-sided meshes. When the mesh is refined by reducing the sizes of the elements, the lift decrease and viscous drag increase are less pronounced. The differences in the aerodynamic performance between the straight-sided meshes and the curved-sided meshes are concluded to be the result of artificial surface roughness introduced by the piecewise-linear boundary approximation provided by the straight-sided meshes.     

电磁极宽度对圆柱绕流场影响的数值分析

在雷诺数Re=200的情况,利用Maxwell方程直接数值计算表面包覆电极与磁极圆柱体产生的电磁力分布,将其加入到动量方程中,在各种电磁力作用参数和电磁极宽度的组合下,对表面覆盖电磁极圆柱体在弱电解质中的绕流场结构及其升阻力特性进行了数值模拟与分析.结果表明,当电磁极宽度较小时,圆柱体绕流场的分离点越容易接近后驻点,而电磁力对总阻力的影响并不明显,但对压差和摩擦阻力均有明显影响.当电磁极宽度较大时,圆柱体尾部区域越容易产生射流现象,而且总阻力随电磁力作用参数和电磁极宽度增大而减小.在电磁力尚不足以完全抑制周期性涡脱落的情况下,升力幅值随电磁力作用参数增大而减小,但随电磁极宽度则先减小后略有增加,升力脉动频率则均随电磁力作用参数和电磁极宽度增大而增加.研究表明,电磁力可以有效地改善圆柱体绕流场结构,达到减小圆柱体阻力并抑制其脉动升力之目的,因此是圆柱型结构的一种有效流动控制手段.