Computational Modeling of Transitional Flow over Low Reynolds Number Airfoils

Abstract

Predicting the aerodynamic aspects of airfoils for various engineering applications is considered one of the most aerodynamic researcher’s objectives. This can actually be accomplished through different theoretical, experimental and numerical approaches. Each of such techniques has its own advantages and weaknesses represented in accuracy and complexity. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is considered one of the most common techniques used in such studies. This thesis introduces a full numerical study of the NACA-0018 airfoil operating at low chord Re of 105 that provides overall optimized numerical procedures for accurate transition predictions, thus the airfoil aerodynamic characteristics can be obtained precisely. All numerical computations were performed using Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations in two-dimensional simulations using the ANSYS-FLUENT 19.0. The transition modeling was provided as the main strategy obtaining the airfoil associated flow field. The numerically predicted results were compared to previously obtained experimental data in order to validate the used computational procedures, which showed a good agreement.

Keywords: Aerodynamics, NACA-0018 airfoil, Transition Modeling, Low Reynolds number airfoils, CFD, RANS solver.