AERODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF DELTA WING AT LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER USING COMPUTATIONAL SIMULATIONS

Abstract

The delta wing is best known for their contribution to stability and also, they have high structural advantages compared to other wings. Till now the delta wing has been used mostly in high speed or high Reynolds number flows. But no one concentrated on the low Reynolds number flows, here we have analyzed the flow at Re = 100000. Since we have taken the case of this Reynolds number range, the results obtained can be utilized in designing the Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) which are mostly designed for the range of Reynolds number Re = 10000 to 100000. We have obtained Cl vs alpha and Cl/Cd vs alpha graphs using computational simulations. We used the CATIA software for designing the wing, it is a conceptual design based on delta wing and analyzed using XFLR 5 for ideal flows, here we used vortex lattice method – ring vortex method and ANSYS fluent software for realistic flows. We used Gamma – Re theta SST transition model for calculations in Ansys Fluent. We have expected CL to be start with smaller values and higher at higher angles of attack since, the delta wings have Low aspect ratio and also they have sweep back which induces leading edge vortices. But the Cl/Cd values will be at their minimum only.