Airfoil

About: Airfoil is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 24696 publications have been published within this topic receiving 337709 citations. The topic is also known as: aerofoil & wing section.

Design and Implementation of a Shape Memory Alloy Actuated Reconfigurable Airfoil

Abstract: The unique thermal and mechanical properties exhibited by shape memory alloys (SMAs) present exciting design possibilities in the field of aerospace engineering. When properly trained, SMA wires act as linear actuators by contracting when heated and returning to their original shape when cooled. These SMA wire actuators can be attached to points on the inside of an airfoil, and can be activated to alter the shape of the airfoil. This shape-change can effectively increase the efficiency of a wing in flight at several different flow regimes. To determine the necessary placement of the SMA wire actuators within the wing, a global optimization method that incorporates a coupled structural, thermal, and aerodynamic analysis has been utilized. A genetic algorithm(GA) has been chosen as the optimization tool to efficiently converge to a design solution. The GA used in this case is a hybrid version with global search and optimization capabilities augmented by the simplex method with selective line search as a loc...

Flight Mechanics of a Dragonfly

Abstract: SUMMARY The steady slow climbing flight of a dragonfly, Sympetrum frequens, was filmed and analysed. By using the observed data, the mechanical characteristics of the beating wings were carefully analysed by a simple method based on the momentum theory and the blade element theory, and with a numerical method modified from the local circulation method (LCM), which has been developed for analysing the aerodynamic characteristics of rotary wings. The results of calculations based on the observed data show that the dragonfly performs low speed flight with ordinary airfoil characteristics, instead of adopting an abnormally large lift coefficient. The observed phase advance of the hindwing, Adi — 80° can be fully explained by the present theoretical calculation. Similarly, the spanwise variation of the airloading and the time variations of the horizontal force, vertical force, pitching moment and torque or power can be definitely estimated within a reasonable range of accuracy in comparison with the flight data. The distribution of loading between the fore and hind pairs of wings is also clarified by the calculations.

Wind turbine airfoil catalogue

Abstract: The aim of this work is two-sided. Firstly, experimental results obtained for numerous sets of airfoil measurements (mainly intended for wind turbine applications) are collected and compared with computational results from the 2D Navier-Stokes solver EllipSys2D, as well as results from the panel method code XFOIL. Secondly, we are interested in validating the code EllipSys2D and finding out for which air-foils it does not perform well compared to the experiments, as well as why, when it does so. The airfoils are classified according to the agreement between the numerical results and experimental data. A study correlating the available data and this classification is performed. It is found that transition modelling is to a large extent responsible for the poor quality of the computational results for most of the considered airfoils. The transition model mechanism that leads to these discrepancies is identified. Some advices are given for elaborating future airfoil design processes that would involve the numerical code EllipSys2D in particular, and transition modelling in general. (au)

Fast flow field prediction over airfoils using deep learning approach

Abstract: In this paper, a data driven approach is presented for the prediction of incompressible laminar steady flow field over airfoils based on the combination of deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and deep Multilayer Perceptron (MLP). The flow field over an airfoil depends on the airfoil geometry, Reynolds number, and angle of attack. In conventional approaches, Navier-Stokes (NS) equations are solved on a computational mesh with corresponding boundary conditions to obtain the flow solutions, which is a time consuming task. In the present approach, the flow field over an airfoil is approximated as a function of airfoil geometry, Reynolds number, and angle of attack using deep neural networks without solving the NS equations. The present approach consists of two steps. First, CNN is employed to extract the geometrical parameters from airfoil shapes. Then, the extracted geometrical parameters along with Reynolds number and angle of attack are fed as input to the MLP network to obtain an approximate model to predict the flow field. The required database for the network training is generated using the OpenFOAM solver by solving NS equations. Once the training is done, the flow field around an airfoil can be obtained in seconds. From the prediction results, it is evident that the approach is efficient and accurate.

Acoustic radiation and surface pressure characteristics of an airfoil due to incident turbulence

Abstract: A theoretical and experimental investigation of the noise and unsteady surface pressure characteristics of an isolated airfoil in a uniform mean velocity, homogeneous, nearly-isotropic turbulence field was conducted. Wind tunnel experiments were performed with a 23 cm chord, two dimensional NACA 0012 airfoil over a free stream Mach number range of 0.1 to 0.5. Far-field noise spectra and directivity were measured in an anechoic chamber that surrounded the tunnel open jet test section. Spanwise and chordwise distribution of unsteady airfoil surface pressure spectra and surface pressure cross-spectra were obtained. Incident turbulence intensities, length scales, spectra, and spanwise cross-spectra, required in the calculation of far-field noise and surface pressure characteristics were also measured.