Abstract
Abstract Inspired by the pectoral flippers of the humpback whale, the use of spanwise waviness in the leading edge has been considered in the literature as a possible way of improving the aerodynamic performance of wings. In this paper, we present an investigation based on direct numerical simulations of the flow around infinite wavy wings with a NACA0012 profile, at a Reynolds number R e = 1000 . The simulations were carried out using the Spectral/hp Element Method, with a coordinate system transformation employed to treat the waviness of the wing. Several combinations of wavelength and amplitude were considered, showing that for this value of Re the waviness leads to a reduction in the lift-to-drag ratio ( L / D ), associated with a suppression of the fluctuating lift coefficient. These changes are associated with a regime where the flow remains attached behind the peaks of the leading edge while there are distinct regions of flow separation behind the troughs, and a physical mechanism explaining this behaviour is proposed.
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