Computational Analysis of Bio-Inspired Corrugated Airfoil with Varying Corrugation Angle

Abstract

A computational study is conducted to investigate the aerodynamic performance of a newly designed corrugated airfoil of dragonfly at range of low Reynolds number 15000-38000. This study represents the transient nature of corrugated airfoils at low Reynolds number where flow is assumed to be laminar, unsteady, incompressible and two dimensional. This research comprises of the investigation of the aerodynamic performance of various corrugation configurations at different corrugated angle (i.e., 4°, 8°, 12°) with varying pitch length and peak height along the span wise and chordwise directions. The 12° corrugated angle is incorporated in the new modified design with varying pitch length, corrugated angle and peak height to achieve the higher lift to drag ratio. The simulation is carried out using Ansys CFD as a simulation tool and ICEM CFD as a modeling tool for 2-D corrugated airfoil. The design features of corrugated airfoil used in this research is not used in earlier studies. The simulation includes a sharp interface cartesian grid-based meshing and k-e model for turbulence model. The computational results show that the newly designed corrugated aero foil generates more lift and less drag compared to flat plate and NACA 0015 aero foil and also helps in preventing large scale flow separation.