The impact of control surfaces on transonic flow mechanism and aerodynamic performances

Abstract

This study presents the results of simulations for the transonic regime of compressible flows over airfoils using the finite volume approach, as performed in the commercial software CFD FLUENT. Computational domains are discretized by generating structured and unstructured meshes for various physical phenomena given by constructive parameters, such as the height of the first layer of cells next to the wall, along with a study of independence and validation of turbulence models, as well as the fluid domain is utilized to validate the quality and suitability of these meshes for the simulations of all the cases. Three turbulence models, the Spalart-Allmaras, the 𝑘 − 𝜀, and the 𝑘 − 𝜔 𝑆𝑆𝑇 models are used to predict the flow behavior (critical Mach number, shock wave,...) and aerodynamic properties (Cl, Cd,...) of conventional NACA0012, and supercritical airfoils OAT15A and RAE2822 without control surfaces, and for the effectiveness of the flight control surfaces, the case of a NACA0012 airfoil with aileron, and OAT15A airfoil with aileron at different angles of deflection, and OAT15A airfoil with the spoiler at 𝛿 = 30° are simulated and compared to the available experimental results. The influence of varying angle of attack to specific 𝑠𝑝 angle of deflection of the aileron attached to OAT15A airfoil is provided. The variation of the aerodynamic coefficients for 3D simulations is also investigated for the ONERA M6 SWEPT WING, A wing of NACA0012 airfoil at 𝛿𝐴= 0°, −10°, and for the Wing of OAT15A airfoil at 𝛿= 10°.𝐴