ANALYSIS OF AERODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF A SUPERCRITICAL AIRFOIL FOR LOW SPEED AIRCRAFT

P.Sethunathan, M.Niventhran, V.Siva, R.Sadhan Kumar

Abstract: The main goal of the proposed paper is the analysis of aerodynamic characteristics of an various supercritical airfoils like 0406, 0412, 0706 and 1006 influence on the dramatic improvement in lift and reduction of drag in low speed aircraft. In a precedent work, a cusp like structure at the trailing edge of an unsymmetrical airfoil produces a very high improvement in climbing performance of an aircraft. The computational analysis of aerodynamic characteristics of supercritical airfoil design and analysis by using ICEM- CFD. In this work certain supercritical airfoils set on an ICEM- CFD without changing benchmark setup, in order to compare their coefficient of lift ( CL ) and coefficient of drag ( CD ) at various angle of attack (a). The pressure distribution was measured to verify global and local effects of airfoil structure. The test conducted in subsonic speed at flow velocity of 25m/s. The result shows that certain supercritical airfoil (0406) configuration reduced the drag and improve coefficient of lift (CL) by 15-20% compared with the baseline model.

Keywords: Supercritical airfoil, Lift Curve Slope, Coefficient of Lift, ICEM–CFD, Drag Reduction

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0306033