High-Lift Devices Performance Enhancement Using Mechanical and Air-Jet Vortex Generators

Abstract

A growing number of advanced-research studies have recently examined the benefits of applying mechanical or fluidic separation control to leading-edge slats or trailing-edge flaps for high-lift geometries. In particular, the use of various control devices placed near the leading edge of a slotted flap mounted on a realistic three-element wing was successfully demonstrated in ONERA’s F1 wind tunnel (Le Fauga-Mauzac Center), in the scope of the Advanced Aerodynamic Flow Control UsingMicroelectromechanical Systems II European project. The present paper aims at assessing the prediction accuracy of steady computational fluid dynamics simulations for flow-control problems, through a detailed validation procedure and comparisons against pressuremeasurements and skin-friction patterns obtained during the aforementioned experiment. In all, very good agreement was observed between numerical and wind-tunnel results, thus demonstrating the capability of Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes solvers to accurately predict suchmultiscale cases and the encouraging efficiency of conventional andmodern actuators in strong adverse pressure gradients.