Numerical/experimental investigations on reducing drag penalty of passive vortex generators on a NACA 4415 airfoil

Abstract

AbstractA study emphasizing the effects of passive vortex generators (VGs) on aerodynamic characteristics of a NACA 4415 airfoil is presented. Both experimental and numerical works have been carried out on an array of VGs attached to a NACA 4415 airfoil. Lift and drag measurements are made at various angles of attack by using three‐axis component balance system. On the numerical side, Reynolds‐averaged Navier‐Stokes (RANS) equations have been solved with ANSYS FLUENT 14.5 commercial code with fully structured mesh and three turbulence models (realizable k‐ε, k‐ω shear stress transport [SST] and the Spalart‐Allmaras model) at Reynolds number Re = 2 × 105. Parametric studies have been conducted to find out optimal configurations with respect to span‐wise separation distance between VGs, along with their location along the chord. A very good agreement has been obtained between experimental and computational results indicating that this optimized configuration is robust for the considered parameters. It turns out that increasing the span‐wise separation length increases the aerodynamic performances (lift‐to‐drag ratio) at low attack angles for which low parasitic drag is achieved but conversely degrades it at higher ones. For the stream‐wise location along the chord, upstream position of VGs degrades the lift‐to‐drag ratio at low attack angles and conversely improves it at higher ones.