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PASSIVE FLOW CONTROL OVER NACA0012 AEROFOIL USING VORTEX

GENERATORS

Conference Paper · December 2010

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 Proceedings of the 37th International & 4th National Conference on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid
Power
FMFP2010
December 16-18, 2010, IIT Madras, Chennai, India

FMFP2010-144
PASSIVE FLOW CONTROL OVER NACA0012 AEROFOIL USING
VORTEX GENERATORS
U. Anand [Link]
Project associate Project associate
Department of Aerospace Engg., IIT Madras Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT Madras
uanandnpt@[Link] [Link]@[Link]

R. Thileepanragu V.T. Gopinathan R. Rajasekar

Research Assistant, Lecturer, Professor,
Park Research Center, Park College Dept. of Aeronautical Engg., Dept. of Aeronautical Engg., Park
of Engg& Tech, Coimbatore Hindusthan college of Engg& Tech, College of Engg& Tech, Coimbatore
[Link]@[Link] Coimbatore
[Link]@[Link]

ABSTRACT energises the boundary layer flow and hence delay

Numerical simulations of turbulent flow over a the stall.
NACA0012 aerofoil attached with vortex Keywords: vortex generator, flow control, delay of
generators (VG) are carried out over a wide range stall, streamwise vortex, tip vortex
of angles of attack at Re=5.5×105 The three-
dimensional Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes INTRODUCTION
equations along with closure equations of Spalart- At low angles of attack (α), the flow over an airfoil
Allmaras turbulence model are solved using is smooth and attached. When α is increased, the
commercial package FLUENT. The addition of VG coefficient of lift (CL) is increased as the pressure
results in increased lift-coefficient and reduced difference between the suction and pressure surface
of the aerofoil is enhanced. However, after a
drag-coefficient at large incident angles. The
particular α, known as stalling angle (αs), the flow
influence of VG on the fluid flow and aerodynamic will not able to withstand the adverse pressure
forces acting on the aerofoil are reported in this gradient generated over the suction side of the foil
paper, with the emphasis on how the addition of and as a result the boundary layer separation will
the small vanes helps to delay the onset of stall. take place (Anderson, 2001). This phenomenon is
Comparison of streamline patterns, pressure known as stalling which results in loss of lift,
coefficient and contour plots of field variables increased drag, generation of aerodynamic noise
and onset of buffeting. An aircraft is required to
between the clean aerofoil and VG fitted aerofoil
operate at high α during takeoff, landing and
help us to understand how the vortex generator maneuvering. Hence, flow control over an aerofoil
at high angles of attack is of strong interest.

1
Manypassive flow control devices are employed to almost 80%. However, since the active VGs
mitigate the aforementioned adverse effects by generate streamwise vortices of strength exactly
delaying or suppressing the separation, and thereby required to control the separation, they outperform
widen the operating α range of aircraft wings (Gad- passive VGs.
el-Hak, 1991).
Experiments performed with VGs attached over the
Vortex generators (VGs) are an array of small race car wings show that the addition of VGs
vanes attached perpendicularly over the suction increased the downward force (Kuya et al., 2009).
surface of the wings and in turbomachine blades. Counter-rotating VGs not only increases the
These vanes are fixed at a small incident angle (β) downward momentum transfer, they also produce
relative airflow. VGs enhance the ability of the less drag penalty. In some cases, it was observed
fluid to stick with the wing surface even at large α that the performance of clean aerofoil was better
by increasing the momentum transfer from the than that of attached co-rotating VGs.
free-stream flow into the boundary layer.
Majority of the studies focused on the effect of
The concept of VG is first introduced by Taylor, VGs have considered flow past a bump to mimic
1947. He has shown that the streamwise trailing the adverse pressure gradient generated over the
vortices generated over a row of small plates wings (Lin, 2002). Only few researchers
increased the streamwise momentum and hence considered the aerofoil configuration, and they
delay the flow separation in a diffuser. reported the effectiveness of VG on the fluid flow
Subsequently many tests have been performed to only for a particular angle of attack (Shan et al.,
show the effectiveness of VGs as a flow control 2008). The objective of the present work is to
device. The turbulent boundary layer developed analyze the influence of VGs on a NACA 0012
over a flat plate at various adverse pressure aerofoil for a wide range of angles of attack. The
gradients are studied by Schubauer and counter-rotating VG configuration is chosen, since
Spangenberg, 1960. Their study has shown that the it is more efficient than its co-rotating counterpart
introduction of VGs enhanced mixing in the (Lin et al., 1991, Kuya et al., 2009).
boundary layer and hence the effective adverse
pressure gradient is reduced. GEOMETRY, GRID DETAILS AND
NUMERICAL METHODOLOGY
The subsonic wind tunnel testing of a canard
aerofoil from the Voyager aircraft showed that NACA 0012 aerofoil is used as the wing cross-
properly designed VGs were found to increase the section. The details of the dimensions of VG and
lift and reduce the drag (Bragg and Gregorek, its orientation are schematically shown in Fig. 1.
1987). A wide variety of passive flow control All these details are taken from Shan et al.
devices were studied to understand their
The three-dimensional steady incompressible
effectiveness in separation control (Lin et al, 1990,
Navier-Stokes equations are solved using
1991, 1999). It has been concluded that VGs were
commercial package FLUENT. The Reynolds
more efficient in achieving the flow separation
number, Re (=Uc/ν, where U is the free-stream
control by means of the streamwise vortices
velocity, c is the chord length of the aerofoil and ν
produced on them. The VGs producing counter-
is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid) = 5.5×105.
rotating streamwise vortices are much more
The second order implicit Euler backward scheme
efficient than that of producing co-rotating
is used for temporal discretization. The convective
streamwise vortices. terms are approximated using second order upwind
Recently, Shan et al., 2008 performed flow control scheme. The Spalart-Allmaras model is used to
experiments over a NACA0012 aerofoil at α=60 model the influence of turbulent Reynolds stress
using passive and active VG configurations. The terms in the momentum equations. The y+ value in
passive VGs reduce the recirculation length by our simulations are maintained below 3. In flows

2
 Figure 1. Illustration of the geometry and dimensions of the wing and vortex generator
From the leading-edge of the aerofoil, the
computational domain extends 5c upstream and
20c downstream. The top and bottom boundaries of
the domain are located at 10c away from the foil.
The whole computational domain is discretized
with structured grid with dense mesh near the wing
and VG, and coarse mesh away from them. The
grid around the VG configuration is shown in Fig.
2. The number of points over the foil and VG are
300 and 100 respectively. The total number of
mesh points in the whole domain is 1100395.
These numbers are arrived at after carrying out a
detailed grid-independency study.
The upstream boundary is modeled as the
freestream velocity inlet, and the velocity is is
Figure 2. Zoomed view of mesh near the vortex given a value to match the Reynolds number of
generators 5.5×105, based on the wing chord. An outflow
boundary condition is imposed for the downstream
with adverse pressure gradient and separation, boundary. The top, bottom and side boundaries are
Spalart-Allmaras model provides more accurate modeled as the symmetric condition. A no-slip
results when compared to other models. Moreover, boundary condition is applied on the wing surface
SA model is numerically very stable and is less and VGs.
sensitive to the grid resolution than two-equation
models (Yaras and Grosvenor, 2003).

3
 (a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 3. Streamline patterns over the mid-span plane of the aerofoil at, (a) α=110 without VG (b) α=110
with VG (c) α=160 without VG (d) α=160 with VG

4
 (a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 4. With respect to angle of attack, the variation of (a) Lift coefficient (b) Total Drag coefficient (c)
Pressure drag coefficient (d) Skin-friction drag coefficient

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Streamline patterns

To demonstrate the influence of VGs, first the Comparison of the streamline patterns shows
viscous fluid flow over a clean aerofoil is qualitatively the influence of VG on the flow past
simulated. Then, the VGs are fitted to the foil as in the aerofoil. The streamline patterns on the mid-
Fig. 1 and the simulations with same Re are carried span plane for two different angles of attack are
out. The variations between these simulations show shown in Fig. 3. When α=110, the streamlines of
the influence of VG over the aerofoil. The clean aerofoil and that of attached VG are almost
numerical experiments are conducted in the angle the same and so are the aerodynamic force
of attack range from 0 to 16 degrees. Favorable coefficients (Fig. 4). The flow is completely
effects of VGs are reported on aerodynamic force attached over the top surface of the foil. However,
coefficients (CL and CD) and stalling angle. after the wing is stalled, the VGs help to reduce the
Moreover, how these modifications in force length of the recirculation region (Fig. 3c and 3d).
coefficients are achieved is explained in this When there is no VG, the flow separates from the
section wing immediately after the leading edge and the
large vortex can be seen in Fig. 3c. With the

5
addition of VG, the size of the recirculation region negligible until α=110 as shown in Fig. 5a. This is
is substantially reduced (Fig. 3d). The quantitative despite the difference in Re of Shan et al., 2008
effect of this is discussed hereafter. and our simulations. In the clean aerofoil, the Cp
achieves a minimum value near the leading-edge,
Effect of VG on Aerodynamic forces owing to acceleration of the fluid flow over the top
surface of the foil. Just after the peak value, the Cp
The variation of lift (CL) and drag coefficient (CD)
increases along the downstream creating a strong
with respect to the angle of attack (α) are shown in
adverse pressure gradient. This causes the
Fig. 4. At low α, the difference between the clean
boundary layer to separate from the top surface.
aerofoil and that fitted with VG is not significant.
Though, with the addition of VGs, the maximum
However, for a clean aerofoil, the CL decreases
suction peak remains the same, the subsequent rate
rapidly and CD shows a sharp increase at α=140
of increase of Cp is less when compared to that of
(Fig. 3a and 3b). From this, it can be inferred that
clean aerofoil case.
the clean aerofoil is stalled at this α. In contrary to
this, the aerofoil with VGs does not show any sign
of stalling until α=160, since throughout the range
of α considered, the CL as well as CD increases
gradually as can be seen from the figure. This
result demonstrates the stall-delaying effect of
vortex generators at high angle of attack flow over
the aerofoil. The CD of attached VG aerofoil is
higher than that of clean aerofoil at low α (Fig. 4b),
because at such low α, the skin-friction drag
produced over the foil dominates the pressure drag
due to the streamlined shape of the foil. Since the
addition of VGs increases the wetting surface area
available for the flow, the increase in CD is
observed (Fig. 4d). Moreover, the tip vortex
produced from the VG also adds up to additional
drag. But it can be seen from Fig. 3b that the (a)
increase in CD produced by the VG is almost
negligible. As α is increased, the contribution of
pressure drag to the total drag is increased since the
separation takes place at large α. The separation is
delayed in aerofoil with attached VG. Hence CD of
attached VG case is lower than that of clean
aerofoil. The reason for the increase of skin-
friction in with VG case near α=140 is not clear.

Effect of VG on Cp distribution
Figure 5 shows the distribution of pressure
coefficient (Cp) over the aerofoil at two different
angles of attack. The simulations of Shan et al.,
2008 has shown that at Re=105 and α=60 the
addition of VGs has only minor influence in the Cp (b)
distribution. Except near the VG locations, the Cp
of with and without VG coincide. In our Figure [Link] distribution over the aerofoil with and
simulations also, the influence of VG is almost without VG at (a) α=110 (b) α=160

6
This is advantageous in two ways. Firstly, the generated as the tip vortex from VG induces a
adverse pressure gradient over the aerofoil is swirling flow in y-z plane. At the mid-plane
decreased and hence the stalling is avoided. The between the VGs, the flow has a strong vertical
reduction in adverse pressure gradient with the help component towards the wall of the aerofoil. The
of VGs has been reported by Schubauer and enhanced momentum transfer explained above is
Spangenberg, 1960, and it is attributed to the actually achieved by this induced vertical velocity.
effective mixing in the boundary layer. Secondly, The vertical velocity directed towards the wall
the suction pressure prevails over most of the top carries the high momentum fluid into the boundary
surface of the foil. This is reflected in Fig. 4 as the layer and hence the kinetic energy of the near-wall
increase in CL at the same operating α. fluid layers is increased. The vertical velocity
moving away from the wall transports the low
Flow field induced by VG velocity fluid from the boundary layer to the outer
flow region.
Since the VGs are fitted to the aerofoil at a small
incidental angle, the pressure difference between As has been pointed out by Godard and Stanislas,
the both surfaces of the foil creates a tip vortex. 2006, the VGs essentially modify the coherent
The pathline plot of flow over the VG is given in structures of the boundary layer. Since RANS
Fig. 6. This is very similar to the creation of tip equations are solved here, the detailed study of
vortex in finite aspect ratio wings (Anderson, near wall effects is not possible. To gain in depth
2001). This tip vortex transports the high- knowledge on how VGs modify coherent structures
momentum fluid from the outer layers into the and keep the flow attached over the aerofoil, direct
boundary layer region. numerical simulations (DNS) over this
configuration are mandatory.

CONCLUSIONS
Flow separation control over a NACA0012 aerofoil
using vortex generators is studied by performing
numerical simulations. The influence of VGs on
bulk quantities of the flow (CL and CD) is reported
and the flow field modifications are discussed. The
streamwise vortices produced from the VGs are of
Figure [Link] over the vortex generators sufficient strength to delay the stalling for the angle
(colored with streamwise velocity) of attack range considered in this study. Direct
Numerical Simulations (DNS) over this
Hence the effective momentum interaction between configuration can shed more light on the
the outer layers and the boundary layer is fundamental physical understanding of the
enhanced. As a result, the retarded fluid flowing in modifications in the coherent structures induced by
the boundary layer region is energized to resist the the VGs to keep the boundary layer attached to the
adverse pressure gradient generated. In Fig. 6 the wall.
lines are colored with magnitude of streamwise
vorticity. It can be seen that the streamwise REFERENCES
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this effect is explained here. The streamwise vortex

7
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