Study of the turbulence models over an aircraft wing

Abstract

Aerodynamics is defined as the science of handling a fluid that is often the air interacting with a structure. When simulating the flow over airfoils, transition from laminar to turbulent flow plays an important role in determining the flow features and in quantifying the airfoil performance such as lift and drag. These fluidic flows are subjected to viscous stresses and inertia which produces disordered fluctuations, so turbulence affects the behavior of the aerodynamic flow as well as the structure interacting with the fluid in a range of high Reynolds, indeed, it is obliged to control these turbulent flows in this area in order to give a good design of the structure. Several models of turbulence have been developed to facilitate the calculation of characteristic quantities to optimize the simulation of turbulent flows in aerodynamics. In this paper, we carried out a validation of a numerical simulation of a 3D transonic flow over the ONERA M6 wing for which the numerical results, performed using ANSYS/FLUENT©, will be compared with experimental data and NASA CFD results consisting on the pressure coefficient (Cp) along the upper and lower wing surfaces. The flow was obtained by solving the steady-state governing equations of continuity and momentum conservation combined with one of five turbulence models (Spalart-Allmaras (S-A), standard k-e, k-e RNG, standard k-ω and k-ω SST) aiming to the validation of these models through the comparison of the predictions and the free field experimental measurements for the selected wing.