5th Flow Control Conference AIAA 2010-4577

28 June - 1 July 2010, Chicago, Illinois

Direct Numerical Simulation of Flow Around a Circulation

Control Airfoil

Nateri K. Madavan* and Michael M. Rogers†

NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA

Abstract
A direct numerical simulation of the flow around a circulation control airfoil is
described. The airfoil is non-cambered and has an elliptical leading edge and a rounded
trailing edge that incorporates tangential jet blowing. The airfoil geometry and flow
configuration are chosen to match experiments as well as prior computational work using
large eddy simulations and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes approaches. The present
computations use a high-order-accurate, upwind-biased, finite-difference technique to
understand important details of the flowfield such as the separation of the turbulent
Coanda jet from the airfoil trailing edge. The freestream Reynolds number based on the
airfoil chord is 0.49 million, the radius of the rounded trailing edge of the airfoil is 9.46%
chord, and the jet-slot height is 2.43% of the radius of the trailing edge. Two different jet
blowing rates, corresponding to jet Reynolds numbers based on the jet-slot height and the
maximum jet velocity of about 4500 and 7200, are considered. The numerical results show
that the main features of the flow are captured for both the low- and high-blowing cases.
The presented results are in good agreement with the experimental measurements and
prior large eddy simulations. More detailed comparisons are deferred to a forthcoming
paper documenting direct numerical simulations made with finer grid resolution.

I. Introduction
Circulation control airfoils are efficient high-lift devices that use active flow control to generate increased lift.
Unlike passive devices, such as flaps or slats, circulation control airfoils typically have bluff trailing edges and
incorporate tangential blowing of a sheet of fluid near the trailing edge on the upper surface. The jet sheet remains
attached to the bluff trailing edge because of the Coanda effect and provides a mechanism for controlling the
boundary layer and augmenting lift. The leading and trailing edge stagnation points move down to the airfoil
pressure surface as a result of the blowing and produce an increase in circulation around the airfoil. Considerable
experimental and computational work has been reported over the past few decades in circulation control
technologies for aircraft applications. The reader is referred to Englar1 and the references cited therein for an
excellent review. More recently, there has been a renewed interest in circulation control as a candidate technology
for potential applications such as the next-generation Cruise Efficient Short Take-off and Landing (CESTOL)
aircraft.
The flowfield around circulation control airfoils, particularly in the Coanda region around the trailing edge, is
complicated and challenging from a computational standpoint. The high-momentum Coanda jet emanating from
the trailing edge slot is bounded by the airfoil wall on one side and a free shear layer on the other and eventually
separates from the curved trailing edge. The computational method must accurately capture this interaction
between the jet and the wall and the surrounding fluid in order to predict the location of the separation point and the
lift of the airfoil accurately. Various approaches based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations
have been used (see, for example, Refs. 2-6) to predict such flows. Modifications, some of them rather ad-hoc, to
existing algebraic, two-equation, and Reynolds-stress turbulence models have been suggested with varying degrees
of success. It is fair to state that the existing literature points to the need for a more general turbulence modeling
approach for circulation control flows. More recently, large eddy simulation (LES) techniques have been applied

*
Research Scientist, NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division, M/S T27B-1. Senior Member, AIAA.
†
Research Scientist, NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division, M/S T27B-1. Associate Fellow, AIAA.
1
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

This material is declared a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States.