Outboard Surface Research Articles

Double-decoupled inverse design of natural laminar flow nacelle under transonic conditions

The inverse design based on the pressure distribution is an essential approach to realize the improvement of Natural Laminar Flow (NLF) performance for nacelles. However, the direct definition of target pressure distribution at design point is challenging for the dilemma to consider the constraints of shock wave and laminar flow at the same time. In addition, the universality of method will be limited when the inverse design is strongly coupled with the solver. Thus, a double-decoupled methodology based on the relationship of pressure distributions between design and off-design points is proposed in this paper, which realizes the decoupling of constraints in shock wave and laminar flow on target pressure distribution as well as the decoupling of flow field solution and inverse design method. Aimed at an isolated flow-through-nacelle of high bypass ratio, the target pressure distribution with appropriate favorable gradient and shock-free feature is defined according to physical principles at the off-design point of Ma = 0.80 while the transonic and laminar performance are examined at the design point of Ma = 0.85. The solution of flow field is based on γ-Reθ transition model and the inverse design is based on residual-correction method. With the inverse design starting from off-design point, the performance of shock wave and laminar flow at design point are both improved. The local shock wave after the lip of nacelle is eliminated effectively while the streamwise length of laminar flow region is doubled and exceeds to 30% of the chord length. The percentage of drag reduction for outboard surface is 12.7% for friction drag, 7.8% for pressure drag and 10.5% for total drag. The effects of inverse design on the process of transition are analyzed with detailed flow features. The robustness of laminar flow is examined under different variation factors of freestream which are deviated from the design point.

Effect of Multiscale Endplates on Wing-Tip Vortex

An experimental investigation is conducted to study the effect of multiscale endplates on the wing-tip vortex and wing aerodynamic performance at Reynolds numbers of 215,000 and 244,000 based on the wing mean chord of a NACA 0012 half-span wing. Two groups of endplates are tested. The first group has three different fractal patterns applied along the top edge of the endplate, while the second group has three different two-scale patterns applied to its outboard surface. It is experimentally shown that both geometry modifications produce a weaker and less coherent vortex. Moreover, while a peak in the power spectral density of the fluctuating axial velocity at the vortex core at Strouhal numbers between 3 and 10 is observed for the plain endplates of both groups, it vanishes for the multiscale endplates. This suggests that the multiscale endplates act on the vortex structure, making it less coherent through the production of smaller eddies as evidenced by the velocity spectra. The multiscale endplates also show potential improvements in terms of the wing aerodynamic efficiency, with the maximum being up to 11.1% larger than for the corresponding plain endplate.

Local Heat Transfer Distributions Within a Rotating Pin-Finned Brake Disk

Abstract This study presents local temperature and heat transfer coefficient distributions obtained experimentally on the internal surfaces of a rotating pin-finned brake rotor at realistic rotation speeds for braking (i.e., N = 100–300 rpm). To this end, the thermochromic liquid crystal technique in a rotating reference frame was employed. The results demonstrate that the bulk airflow within the ventilated channel of a rotating disk follows a predominantly backward sweeping inline-like path between the pin fins. Internal local heat transfer is distributed nonuniformly on both inboard and outboard surfaces, with twice higher average cooling from the outboard surface than the inboard surface: this possibly exacerbates the thermal stresses, which leads to thermal distortion of the rotor (i.e., coning).

Enhancement of natural convection fins by high-frequency forced oscillations

This paper conveys a numerical simulation of an active enhancement device for natural convection in the interfin spaces of a fin array. A baseline solution for the non-enhanced situation revealed that the confinement created by the walls of adjacent fins and the base surface gave rise to a drastic reduction of the heat transfer coefficient values compared with those for the standard vertical plate. This outcome demonstrated the necessity for enhancement. The enhancement device investigated here communicated with the interfin space via an opening in the base surface. Enhancement was achieved by alternately introducing and extracting air into and from the space. The frequency of the introduction/extraction cycle was varied over values of 0, 10, 50, and 100 Hz. For each of these cases, spatially local, cycle-averaged heat transfer coefficients were determined on the bounding surfaces of the interfin space and on the outboard surface of a fin that faced a large ambient space. Results were also obtained for the cycle- and spatially averaged coefficients. Even at a low oscillation frequency of 10 Hz, the interfin heat transfer coefficients were significantly enhanced but not sufficiently to overcome the confinement effect. At 100 Hz, the enhancement gave rise to coefficient values that are about 64 times greater than the unenhanced values.

Characteristics of F/A-18 vertical tail buffeting

A time-accurate computational analysis of vertical tail buffeting of full F/A-18 aircraft is conducted at typical flight conditions to identify the buffet characteristics of fighter aircraft. The F/A-18 aircraft is pitched at wide range of high angles of attack at Mach number of 0.243 and Reynolds number of 11 millions. Strong coupling between the fluid and structure is considered in this investigation. Strong coupling occurs when the inertial effect of the motion of the vertical tail is fed back into the flow field. The aerodynamic flow field around the F/A-18 aircraft is computed using the Reynolds-averaged full Navier–Stokes equations. The dynamical structural response of the vertical tail is predicted using direct finite-element analysis. The interface between the fluid and structure is applied using conservative and consistent interfacing methodology. The motion of the computational grid due to the deflection of the vertical tail is computed using transfinite interpolation module. The investigation revealed that the vertical tail is subject to bending and torsional responses, mainly in the first modes of vibrations. The buffet loads increase significantly as the onset of vortex breakdown moves upstream of the vertical tails. The inboard surface of the vertical tail has more significant contribution in the buffet excitation than the outboard surface. In addition, the pressure on the outboard surface of the vertical tail is less sensitive to the angle of attack than the pressure on the inboard surface. The buffet excitation peaks shift to lower frequency as the angle of attack increases. The computational results are compared, and they are in close agreement, with several flight and experimental data.