Introduction

An analysis of the aerodynamic performance of a straight rectangular wing in steady state. The analysis is done as a part 2 to the 2D analysis of the same wing. We compare the result to its 2D counterpart and try to take apart the factors that come into play when the flow field is not uniform across the length of the wing.

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

We have a rectangular wing with the cross section of a clark y airfoil moving in air at a velocity of25 m/s and angle of attack of 4°. We have to determine the lift coefficient and drag coefficient of the wing and plot the pressure coefficient against percentage of chord length.

PROCEDURE

For this purpose we create a model of the wing in 3D space and place it in a c-domain. The computational domain incorporates just half of the whole model. This allows us to reduce the number of elements required to perform the analysis.
We perform a steady state CFD analysis with gravity off using the SST k-omega turbulence model and the results are published in post.

RESULTS

The following results are obtained from the analysis:

• Lift coefficient (CL) = 0.528
• Drag Coefficient (CD) = 0.033

These results deviate from its 2D counterpart. This has two major reasons:

• The mesh is not fine enough in significant areas such as the wake of the wing.
• Vortices are formed at the tip of the wing called wingtip vortices which have significant impact on lift and drag of the wing.