Purpose The purpose of this lab was to provide students with experience for basic process of airfoil design

using numerical methods. The process of designing an airfoil required iterations and a good judgement for an optimal solution. Abstract The maturity in the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program has led people design preliminary aerodynamic profiles much efficiently. At the end the World War II many aircrafts were lost when the pilots could not pull up once the aircraft was in a dive. Many pilots lost their lives while trying to understand the reasons for aircrafts aerodynamic inability. The CFD program is therefore the most advantageous in the present day due to its advanced computational ability. With the CFD program, aerodynamists can analyze the forces on an airfoil and can make modifications before testing the airfoil design on an actual aircraft. The analyzing process from the CFD enabled us in understanding that the shock-wave induced the flow separation at the trailing edge of the airfoil. The CFD also provides lots of data for an airfoil that can also be used to increase the efficiency of an airfoil. The thickness of an airfoil plays an important role in alleviating the flow separation. In general, airfoils with smaller thickness alleviate the flow separation better than airfoils with greater thickness. However, the lift coefficient decreases for airfoils with smaller thickness. These are some of the ideas that will be analyzed and discussed in the following report. Theory This lab was divided into two parts. The objective of part A of the lab was to determine the thickness of an airfoil that alleviated the flow separation over an airfoil with the following parameters: Flight Mach number: M=0.85 Angle of Attack: =0.0 Maximum camber: camber = 0 Performance criterion: No boundary layer separation detectable The objective of Part B of the lab also involved the determination of the thickness of an airfoil but with specific parameters: Flight Mach Number: M=0.80 Required moment coefficient: CMc/4=0.033 (or less) Lift/Drag ratio: L/D=8 (or greater) Thickness: range = 8% to 16% of chord length Angle of Attack: =0.0 Max. Camber range: camber = 1% to 6% Max. Camber location: range = 5% to 70% from the LE For both the parts of the lab, the method of iterations was extensively used for the analyzing process. In order to start the analyzing process, reasonable airfoil configurations were used and the analysis process was performed on the airfoil using iterations. The airfoil design was reconfigured from the knowledge gained from the previous design and the analysis was repeated. After performing several design cycles, the solution for the specific performance criterion were achieved. Programs Required Matlab ICEM CFD Fluent Procedure In order to perform the investigation, the Matlab program Progen09A provided by the teaching assistant was used to generate an airfoil. The ICEM CFD command file A504-icem-2d was then used to create a mesh around the airfoil. Then the Fluent was used on the mesh surrounding airfoil to generate the analysis of the airfoil. The actual workings of the programs mentioned were performed from the detailed instructions provided in the lab manual.

Results and Discussions 1. In transonic flow, the supersonic flow region is terminated by a shockwave allowing the flow to slow down to subsonic speeds. This is evident in the Mach contour in Figure 1 (Appendix A), the Mach number reduces after the curvature of the upper surface since velocity is related to pressure by Bernoullis equation the pressure field around the airfoil is inversely proportional to the speed. The shockwave strength is proportional to the change in the static pressure contour before and after the shockwave. As seen in Figure 2 (Appendix A) the pressure gradient for NACA 0012 changes abruptly after the shockwave. There is a huge increase in pressure, whereas for NACA 0010 the change in pressure contours before and after the shockwave was gradual, therefore the strength of the shockwave varies with rate of change of the pressure field around the airfoil. As thickness is decreased the variation of Mach number before and after the shockwave on the airfoil decreases therefore the strength of the shockwave decreases as seen in Figure 1 and 2. From Figure 5 as thickness decreases the drop in Cp decreases resulting in weak shockwave strength whereas from Figure 6 increase in thickness increases the drop in Cp increasing the shockwave strength. As seen in Figure 1 and Figure 2 the shockwave moves forward with decrease in thickness and the shockwave moves rearward with increase in thickness. As the thickness increases the air along the upper surface has to travel faster from the stagnation point in the leading edge due to the increase in the curvature of the airfoil hence resulting in a higher Mach number than a thin airfoil. The curvature of the airfoil moves aft ward with increase in thickness thus moving the shockwave rearward. 2. As seen in Figure 1 and Figure 2, as thickness increases the shockwaves moves rearward and the Mach number increases considerably over the airfoil. Fighter jets are designed to fly at supersonic speeds the normal shockwave would then evolve into a bow wave. A thick airfoil will not be able to handle the supersonic airflow effectively unlike a thin airfoil. Thin airfoils have a higher critical Mach number than thick airfoils therefore delaying the occurrence of the shockwave. At supersonic and high transonic speeds the airfoil shape needs to be thinner due to the delay of the formation of shockwave as this reduces the drag that is caused as the airplane moves through the shock wave. Also the intensity of the shockwave also decreases with thin airfoils. As seen in Table 2 below as the thickness reduces the coefficient of lift decreases hence the lift decreases. For high speed aircraft the velocity is relatively high and since lift is proportional to velocity squared therefore the lower coefficient of lift does not affect the lift of plane significantly. Thin airfoils also stall at the leading edge and grow towards the trailing edge with varying angles of attack. The leading edge stall causes instability of the aircraft and for a fighter aircraft this allows greater maneuverability which is of greater priority than stability. Therefore thin airfoils are a better choice for high transonic and subsonic speeds. Table 1: Lift and Drag of 1% and 2% Camber
Lift Drag Static Pressure Velocity NACA 1208 0.20688424 0.009091558 -3.92e+4 (minimum) 3.94e+2 (maximum) NACA 2208 0.42489195 0.019695957 -4.67e+4 (minimum) 4.15e+2 (maximum)

Table 2: Lift and Drag of Various Airfoil Thicknesses

NACA 0010 Lift Drag 0.0004 0.0277 NACA0011 -0.0003 0.0392 NACA0012 0.0008 0.0680 NACA 1208 0.2069 0.0091 NACA 1210 0.2149 0.0141 NACA 26008 0.5077 0.0531 NACA 26010 0.3624 0.0563 NACA 26012 0.1338 0.0508

Table 3: Lift and Drag of Various Airfoils with Different Locations of Maximum Camber
NACA 1208 Lift Drag CL/CD 0.2069 0.0091 22.7556421 NACA 1308 0.2135 0.0088 24.24652917 NACA 21008 0.1467 0.0078 18.90261671 NACA 22408 0.2332 0.0125 18.6330199 NACA 23208 0.2794 0.0165 16.90337753 NACA 24008 0.3164 0.0191 16.54856282 NACA 26008 0.5077 0.0531 9.561409562

3.

As the camber of an airfoil is increased, both lift and drag increase. This phenomenon can be seen in Table 1. In general, a camber of an airfoil increases the maximum lift coefficient. With the increasing lift coefficient an aircraft can fly at lower speeds without stalling hence cambered airfoils are efficient for gliders and other low velocity aircrafts. As the air flows over a cambered airfoil, the velocity of the air over the airfoil increases thus from Bernoullis equation this results in a much lower static pressure field over the airfoil thereby increasing the lift. However, as the camber is increased the drag increases as well. Therefore, an optimal camber must be found for efficient lift and drag. As the thickness of an airfoil increases, both the lift and drag increases. This can be seen in Table 2 for NACA 0010, NACA 0011 and NACA 0012. The reasons remain the same as for the cambered airfoil explained earlier. For 5-series NACA airfoil in Table 2, the lift decreases as the thickness increases and the drag remains somewhat same. For 5 Series airfoils the lift decreases because of increased thickness due, the flow separation over the airfoil. The flow separation occurs on the midsection of the airfoil and then the flow reconnects at the trailing edge of the airfoil. The flow reconnects because the energy of the boundary layer is lower than the energy of the free stream velocity. As the location of the maximum camber increases both lift and drag increases. As the free stream goes over an airfoil with location of maximum camber closer to the leading edge, the flow separation occurs at the trailing edge of the airfoil. The flow separation decreases the lift coefficient. As the location of the maximum camber is moved towards the trailing edge, it delays the flow separation thus the flow is laminar over most of the airfoil.

4. The 4 series and 5 series airfoils have major performance difference among them. As seen in Table 3
maximum coefficient of lift is higher for NACA 5 series compared to NACA 4 series. Also seen in Table 2 the moment coefficient for NACA 5 series is lower compared to NACA 4 series. The increase in maximum CLmax and decrease in pitching moment is due to the forward location of the maximum camber. Also the NACA 4 series has a smooth and gradual decrease in lift at the point of stall whereas the NACA 5 series would have an abrupt decrease in lift at stall point. Since the CLmax is higher NACA 5 series can be designed to achieve lower stall speeds than NACA 4 series. Since NACA 5 series has more parameters to vary, one parameter can be varied with respect to other and still maintain the desired design characteristics. As seen in Table 2 NACA 5 series begins to approach stall conditions after 8% thickness whereas from part A NACA 4 series begins to stall at 12% thickness. Therefore NACA 4 series has better stalling conditions. 5. Part A. For part A we started with the analysis of NACA 0012. NACA 0012 had a flow separation close to the trailing edge as seen in Figure 7 therefore it was not a suitable design. By decreasing the thickness to 11% the flow separation did not occur and the shockwave move towards the leading edge with decreasing shockwave strength. When shear plot of NACA 0011 was plotted, the shear at 0.6m chord was close to zero indicating that boundary layer separation is imminent. Therefore from previous data it was evident that as thickness decreases the boundary layer separation does not occur and the shockwave strength decreases due to the gradual pressure change over the thin airfoils. The final design of airfoil that was used was NACA 0010 since it does not approach boundary layer separation unlike NACA 0011 and NACA 0012 and it had lower shockwave strength than both as seen in Figure 7 and 8 (Appendix A). Although airfoils like NACA 0003 and NACA 0005 do not have flow separation and they have relatively weak shockwave, the thin airfoils produce lower coefficient of lifts and for transonic speed would not provide the needed lift of an aircraft. Therefore NACA 0010 was a suitable airfoil since it has no flow separation but also provide significant lift coefficient for transonic speed range.

Part B. For the second part different camber thickness, location and thickness was considered. For 4 digit series NACA 1308 airfoil met the required conditions. As camber location is moved rearward the CL increases and cd decreases. Also CD increases with an increase in max camber and thickness. Therefore a thin airfoil with low camber and the location of max camber should be towards the back therefore NACA 1308 was a suitable design for 4 digit series since it provided the highest CL/CD as seen in Table 3 above. For five digit series the series number was kept constant and location of maximum camber and thickness were once again varied. By decreasing the thickness the CL began to increase and CD began to decrease and also as the location of maximum of camber moved aft ward it contributed in increase in CL as well. As seen in Table 3 NACA 21008 had the highest CL ratio and the required moment coefficient compared to tested NACA 5 series. Conclusion The key objective of this lab was to determine a thickness of an airfoil that best alleviated the flow separation of the airfoil. This was done through the programs provided by the teaching assistant. With the help of Matlab code, various airfoils were generated with configurations that closely represented the problem. Through the ICEM CFD command file, a mesh was generated around the airfoil. This mesh generated airfoil was then used in the Fluent program to perform 2000 iterations for each of the airfoils generated. From the iterations, the performances of the airfoils were determined. In part A of the lab, the optimal thickness that best alleviated the flow separation over the airfoil was NACA 0010. This was determined by analyzing the Shear plot, velocity contour and the pressure contour. In part B of this lab, the optimal thickness that best alleviated the flow separation were NACA 1208 (4-series) and NACA 21008 (5-series). It should be noted that the optimal thickness for both parts of the airfoil was 8%. The 8% thickness was the least among the other airfoils. This means that any thickness over 8% would lead to the flow separation. Another key point that should be noted is that the optimal thickness found was valid for the parameters specified in the lab manual. References 1. Anderson, John David. Fundamentals of Aerodynamics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 2. Anderson, John David. Introduction to Flight. Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 3. Walsh, P. C., J. Karpynczyk, and P. Cresnik. AER 504 Aerodynamics Laboratory Manual. 2010.

APPENDIX A:

Figure 1: Mach Contour NACA 0012

Figure 2: Mach Contour NACA 0010

Figure 3: Static Pressure Contour of NACA 0012

Figure 4: Static Pressure Contour of NACA 0010

Figure 5: Coefficient of Pressure plot of NACA 0010

Figure 6: Coefficient of Pressure plot of NACA 0012

Figure 7: Velocity contour of NACA 0012 showing flow separation

Figure 8: Velocity contour of NACA 0010 showing no flow separation

Figure 9: Wall Shear plot of NACA 0012

Figure 10: Wall Shear plot of NACA 0010

Figure 11: Mach Contour of NACA 1308

Figure 12: Mach Contour of NACA 21008