Abstract
AbstractThis article focuses on the aerodynamic design of a morphing aerofoil at cruise conditions using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The morphing aerofoil has been analysed at a Mach number of 0.8 and Reynolds number of $3 \times 10^{6}$ , which represents the transonic cruise speed of a commercial aircraft. In this research, the NACA0012 aerofoil has been identified as the baseline aerofoil where the analysis has been performed under steady conditions at a range of angles of attack between $0^{^{\kern1pt\circ}}$ and $3.86^{^{\kern1pt\circ}}$ . The performance of the baseline case has been compared to the morphing aerofoil for different morphing deflections ( $w_{te}/c = [0.005 - 0.1]$ ) and start of the morphing locations ( $x_{s}/c = [0.65 - 0.80]$ ). Further, the location of the shock wave on the upper surface has also been investigated due to concerns about the structural integrity of the morphing part of the aerofoil. Based upon this investigation, a most favourable morphed geometry has been presented that offers both, a significant increase in the lift-to-drag ratio against its un-morphed counterpart and has a shock location upstream of the start of the morphing part.
Highlights
Since the beginning of aviation history, systems that change the camber of aerofoils have been used to efficiently control the forces they generate to attain flight control and aircraft trim
A flap introduces a discontinuity that under certain flight conditions generates adverse pressure gradients and flow separation. This can cause a significant increase in drag lowering the aerodynamic efficiency and increasing the fuel consumption of the aircraft
The turbulent flow is simulated with the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, which decomposes the instantaneous velocity into the sum of a mean and a fluctuating part [38]
Summary
Since the beginning of aviation history, systems that change the camber of aerofoils have been used to efficiently control the forces they generate to attain flight control and aircraft trim. A flap introduces a discontinuity that under certain flight conditions generates adverse pressure gradients and flow separation This can cause a significant increase in drag lowering the aerodynamic efficiency and increasing the fuel consumption of the aircraft. The improvement in payload and cruise speed has made such technology more challenging to implement It is only with the recent advances in smart materials and adaptive structures that the idea of using morphing aerofoilss in modern-day aircraft [3] or UAVs [4, 5] has come back as a credible contender to improve aerodynamic performances. In a concurrent project carried out by NASA and Boeing, another morphing trailing edge was presented [10] These two designs, different both morph the aerofoil by using complex active kinematic system networks, which are generally heavy and come with important maintenance needs. One example of such an approach is the FishBAC design [12, 13] that was taken as a reference for this study
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