To read this content please select one of the options below:

Numerical investigation of the unsteady aerodynamics of NACA 0012 with suction surface protrusion

Aslesha Bodavula (Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India)
Rajesh Yadav (Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India)
Ugur Guven (Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India)

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology

ISSN: 0002-2667

Article publication date: 2 December 2019

Issue publication date: 22 January 2020

257

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of surface protrusions on the flow unsteadiness of NACA 0012 at a Reynolds number of 100,000.

Design/methodology/approach

Effect of protrusions is investigated through numerical simulation of two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations using a finite volume solver. Turbulent stresses are resolved through the transition Shear stress transport (four-equation) turbulence model.

Findings

The small protrusion located at 0.05c and 0.1c significantly improve the lift coefficient by up to 36% in the post-stall regime. It also alleviates the leading edge stall. The larger protrusions increase the drag significantly along with significant degradation of lift characteristics in the pre-stall regime as well. The smaller protrusions also increase the frequency of the vortex shedding.

Originality/value

The effect of macroscopic protrusions or deposits in rarely investigated. The delay in stall shown by smaller protrusions can be beneficial to micro aerial vehicles. The smaller protrusions increase the frequency of the vortex shedding, and hence, can be used as a tool to enhance energy production for energy harvesters based on vortex-induced vibrations and oscillating wing philosophy.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

All the simulations carried out for this investigation were carried out on computational fluid dynamics Servers with 8 cores Xeon processors and 32 giga bytes of memory provided by the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies. We would like to thank the university management for providing us the necessary support required for the simulations. The authors would also like to thank the Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor of the university to have financially supported this research. We hereby declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Citation

Bodavula, A., Yadav, R. and Guven, U. (2020), "Numerical investigation of the unsteady aerodynamics of NACA 0012 with suction surface protrusion", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 92 No. 2, pp. 186-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-01-2019-0022

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles