Simulation of Separation Control on a Morphing Wing
with Conformal Camber
Vamsidhar Katam, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky
Raymond P. LeBeau, Jr., Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky
rplebeau@engr.edu
Jamey D. Jacob, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky
The aerodynamics of airfoils at low speeds is significantly altered by low
Reynolds number effects. The general problem at these Reynolds numbers is
the tendency towards separation which decreases lift and increases drag.
Typical aircrafts affected by these Reynolds numbers are micro-aerial vehicles,
unmanned aerial vehicles, and aircrafts flying in low density environments.
The present paper focuses on flow control at low Reynolds numbers through
oscillatory wing morphing. A modified NACA 4415 airfoil with an adaptive
actuator mounted in it is taken as the primary airfoil for the present studies.
This actuator can be kept static or oscillated to change the effective camber
of the primary airfoil. The current paper focuses on the results obtained
from experiments and numerical simulations of static and oscillatory actuator
cases over different Reynolds numbers and a range of angles of attack. Comparisons
will be made between the experiments and numerical simulation results thereby
establishing the effectiveness of the present approach as a flow control
mechanism.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in conjunction with an evolutionary
searching algorithm like a genetic algorithm (GA) potentially offers an efficient
and robust optimization method for current flow control designs. As the parameter
space under investigation increases in complexity, the performance of evolutionary
search algorithms should remain high and become increasingly effective compared
to gradient-based methods. Based on previous work optimizing a two-jet system,
this paper will test the performance of the EARND genetic algorithm and other
selected evolutionary algorithms on small arrays of blowing and suction jets
on a NACA 0012 airfoil. In addition to the flow control results, emphasis
is placed on the development of an efficient algorithm and CFD computation
to address the high computational costs associated with these problems.