Abstract
We investigate the aerodynamic performance of active flow control of airfoils and wings using synthetic jets with zero net-mass flow. The study is conducted via wall-resolved and wall-modeled large-eddy simulation using two independent CFD solvers: Alya, a finite-element-based solver; and charLES, a finite-volume-based solver. Our approach is first validated in a NACA4412, for which numerical and experimental results are already available in the literature. The performance of synthetic jets is evaluated for two flow configurations: a SD7003 airfoil at moderate Reynolds number with laminar separation bubble, which is representative of Micro Air Vehicles, and the high-lift configuration of the JAXA Standard Model at realistic Reynolds numbers for landing. In both cases, our predictions indicate that, at high angles of attack, the control successfully eliminates the laminar/turbulent recirculations located downstream the actuator, which increases the aerodynamic performance. Our efforts illustrate the technology-readiness of large-eddy simulation in the design of control strategies for real-world external aerodynamic applications.
Highlights
The overall performance of an aircraft wing is significantly affected by boundary-layer flow separation, specially at the high angles of attack (AoA) typically encountered during take-off and landing operations
We investigate the aerodynamic performance of active flow control of airfoils and wings using synthetic jets with zero net-mass flow
Active flow control of airfoils with laminar separation bubbles we focus on airfoils operating at moderate Reynolds numbers, which is of interest for the development of Micro Air Vehicles such as drones
Summary
The overall performance of an aircraft wing is significantly affected by boundary-layer flow separation, specially at the high angles of attack (AoA) typically encountered during take-off and landing operations. We explore AFC of boundary layers in moderate-Reynolds-number airfoils and the wing of a full aircraft in high-lift configuration. The convective term is discretized using a Galerkin finite element (FEM) scheme recently proposed [19], which conserves linear and angular momentum, and kinetic energy at the discrete level Both second- and third-order spatial discretizations are used. The set of equations is integrated in time using a third-order Runge-Kutta explicit method combined with an eigenvalue-based time-step estimator [22] This approach is significantly less dissipative than the traditional stabilized FEM approach [23]. We impose a uniform plug flow as the inflow boundary condition
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