Effects of Trailing-Edge Attachment on the Flow Structure over a Generic Delta Wing

Abstract

The objective of this work is to reveal the significance of a trailing-edge attachment on the flow structure over a generic nonslender delta wing using the dye visualization technique on the top-view plane. Instantaneous images are acquired by stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (stereo-PIV) to calculate time-averaged flow data, with angle of attack, α, and yaw angle, θ, are varied within 7°≤α≤17° and 0°≤θ≤15°, respectively. It is shown that time-mean locations of vortex breakdown for the nonslender delta and lambda wings occur in the field close to the wings. As a result, no remarkable alteration is observed for the spatial locations of the vortex breakdown. The experiments also show that the θ, which is a crucial parameter, alters the flow structure over the nonslender delta wing substantially compared with the lambda wing. It is concluded that the trailing-edge attachment plays vital role when θ becomes effective.