Numerical investigation of circulation control applied to flapless aircraft
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the equivalent control authority of the conventional and circulation control (CC) wing of the aircraft and assess the energy expenditure and aerodynamic efficiency of the CC wing.
Design/methodology/approach
Four target cases with different flap deflection angles θ are set in advance for the conventional wing, and then a series of cases with different jet momentum coefficients Cμ are set for the CC wing. The lift, drag and momentum coefficient curves of the CC wing are compared to those of the four conventional wing cases. The curves with the best agreement are selected to establish the corresponding relation between θ and Cμ. The energy expenditure of the CC system is analyzed. The concept of equivalent lift-to-drag ratio for the CC wing is introduced to compare the aerodynamic efficiency with the conventional wing
Findings
The control authority of the conventional wing at θ = 0º, 10º, 20º, 30º are equivalent to the control authority of the CC wing with Cµ = 0.0, 0.005, 0.009 and 0.012. The CC system is more efficient at small Cµ than large Cµ.
Practical implications
This study could contribute to the application of the CC system on flapless aircrafts.
Originality/value
The corresponding relation between θ and Cµ is established by matching the equivalent control authority between the conventional wing and CC wing.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Erratum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article, Fu, Z., Chu, Y., Cai, Y., Xu, H. and Xu, Y. (2020), “Numerical investigation of circulation control applied to flapless aircraft”, Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, contained errors in the author names and their affiliations and the acknowledgements. These errors were introduced in the production process and have now been corrected online.
This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11972306), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No. 310201901A004), the Seed Foundation of Innovation and Creation for Graduate Students in Northwestern Polytechnical University (Grant No. ZZ2019002), the Foundation of National Key Laboratory, and the 111 Project of China (B17037). The authors would like to acknowledge the computing services from the High Performance Computing Center of Northwestern Polytechnical University.
Citation
Fu, Z.-J., Chu, Y.-W., Cai, Y.-S., Xu, H.-Y. and Xu, Y. (2020), "Numerical investigation of circulation control applied to flapless aircraft", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 92 No. 6, pp. 879-893. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-10-2019-0208
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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