A parametric study of LES on laminar-turbulent transitional flows past an airfoil

Low-Reynolds-number aerodynamic performance of small-sized air vehicles is an area of increasing interest. In this study, low-Reynolds-number flows past an SD7003 airfoil are investigated to understand important viscous features of laminar separation and transitional flow followed by the complicated behavior of the flow reattachment process. In order to satisfy the three-dimensional (3D) requirement of the code, a simple “3D wing” is constructed from a two-dimensional (2D) airfoil. A parametric study of large eddy simulation (LES) on the airfoil flows at Re = 60,000 is performed. Effects of grid resolution and sub-grid scale (SGS) models are investigated. Although 3D effects cannot be accurately captured owing to the limitation of the grid resolution in the spanwise direction, the preliminary LES calculations do reveal some important flow characteristics such as leading-edge laminar separation and vortex shedding from the primary laminar separation bubble on the low-Reynolds-number airfoil.