IAETSD JOURNAL FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH IN APPLIED SCIENCES, VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1, JAN-JUNE /2017

ISSN (ONLINE): 2394-8442

STALL CHARACTERISTICS OF SINGLE AND MULTI-ELEMENT

AIRFOIL
1Jeevan Sadalge, 2Dr.V.Ramesh, 3Dr. K.S.Shashishekar
1M.Tech Student, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur.
2Joint Head, CTFD Division, National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore.
3Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur.
Email: 1jeevansadalge007@gmail.com, 2rameshvasudevarao@gmail.com, 3kss_sit@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT.

In the present work, stall characteristic of single and multi-element airfoil is studied. A multi-
element airfoil refers to a simple airfoil with a split flap. Computational study is performed on a 2D subsonic
NACA0012 (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) airfoil using CFD software tools. CFD simulations
are performed for the airfoils using ANSYS FLUENT as the solver and ICEM CFD as the grid generation tool.
The results are presented for every 2 deg angle of attack ranging from 0 deg to respective critical angle of attack
for single and split flapped airfoil at a Reynolds number of 3 million. Spalart Allmaras turbulent model with
structured C mesh topology is used for the simulation. Lift coefficients are computed numerically and are
validated with the experimental results taken from wind tunnel tests. It is found that computational results are
in close agreement with the wind tunnel results taken from the literature. The main purpose of this work is to
demonstrate the increment in lift due to flapped airfoil. For both the airfoils (plain and flapped) stall
characteristics are plotted to get clear understanding of the stall phenomenon which is of great importance in
aerodynamic study of airfoils.

Keywords: Lift coefficient, Stall, Multi-element airfoil, Split flap.

I. INTRODUCTION
In aerodynamics, an airfoil experiences a net aerodynamic force when it is subjected to a relative air motion. The force component
perpendicular to the airfoil chord is defined as lift and increases linearly with increase in angle of attack for a given Reynolds number and airfoil
shape. Stall is a condition wherein there is no increment in lift after a certain angle of attack referred to as the critical angle and thereafter lifts
decreases with increasing angle of attack. It is of utmost importance to know the exact stall behavior of an airfoil, which will help to design the
required runway length and the speed of an aircraft during takeoff and landing. To get the required lift at low speed and minimum angle of
attack, additional elements are provided to the airfoil namely slats and flaps. Flap is an airfoil shaped wing when added to the main element
gives more lift. There are various types of flaps that are used in modern civilian aircrafts. In this work, split flap is used for the study which is
shown in figure1.

Fig1. Split flap

Karna S. Patel et al. performed CFD simulation study on NACA0012 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 3 million. The CFD results are
obtained for angles of attack of 0 deg and 6 deg. CFD results includes lift and drag forces along with lift and drag coefficients. Qualitative study
is carried out through contours of static pressure and velocity magnitude. Graphs showing convergence of lift and drag also plotted. The major
goal of this paper is to show that there is a lift for NACA0012 at angles of attack greater than 0 deg. ANSYS FLUENT software was used for the
simulation and flow is incompressible. Turbulent model of type transition SST is used in this simulation. [1]

B. Raghava Rao and Rangineni Sahitya carried out study on experimental and numerical investigation of lift, drag coefficients and pressure
distribution of two-dimensional subsonic stream over NACA 0012 symmetric airfoil at different angle of attacks at low and high Reynolds
numbers (Re). CFD simulations are performed for every 2 deg angle of attacks from -20 to 20. Structured mesh with 80000 elements is been
used.

To Cite This Article: Jeevan Sadalge, Dr.V.Ramesh and Dr. K.S.Shashishekar,. STALL CHARACTERISTICS
OF SINGLE AND MULTI-ELEMENT AIRFOIL. Journal for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences
;Pages: 434-439
435. Jeevan Sadalge, Dr.V.Ramesh and Dr. K.S.Shashishekar,. STALL CHARACTERISTICS OF SINGLE AND
MULTI-ELEMENT AIRFOIL. Journal for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 434-439

The turbulent models used for simulation are Spalart-Allmaras, K-Omega (Shear Stress Transport). Low-speed wind tunnel is used for the
experimental testing. CFD software used is ANSYS FLUENT15. The main purpose of the work was to explain the behavior of the airfoil at
mentioned flow conditions and to build up a verified solution method. The simulated results are compared with the experimental results to show
the validation. [2]

Deepa M. S et al. studied the phenomenon of dynamic stall by considering NACA0012 airfoil beyond its static stall incident angle.
ANSYS FLUENT is used to simulate NACA0012 airfoil under dynamic stall conditions. O grid mesh type is used with y+ value of less
than 1. Coefficient of lift, coefficient of drag and coefficient of moment values are computed for angles of attack deg, 8 de g, 12 deg, 14
deg and 16 deg. CFD simulation is carried out at Reynolds number of 3 million. Also they created a UDF (User Defined Function ) by
writing a code in C which includes the effect of moving grid in an inertial frame of reference. Finally they coupled the UDF with
FLUENT in order to generate the movement of the airfoil based on the sinusoidal pitching function. SST turbulent model with 2nd order
upwind scheme is used for simulation purpose. [3]

II. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

During takeoff conditions, an airplane needs higher lift with minimum speed and lower angle of attack. This can be achieved by adding an extra
element called flap at the trailing edge of the wing with some deflection. This gives greater lift at same angle of attack compared to airfoil with no
flap. In this study, numerical analysis is performed on NACA0012 airfoil with and without flap by FVM method using FLUENT solver. The
main objective of present work is to study the stall behavior of single and multi- element airfoils and validate the CFD results of both with their
respective experimental results. Here multi-element airfoil refers to a plain NACA0012 airfoil with a split flap deployed at an angle of 60 at a
location of 0.8c from the leading edge and having length of 0.2c. c is the Chord length of 1m. The study is carried out at a Reynolds number of 3
million and flow conditions are assumed as incompressible.

III. MODELING AND GRID GENERATION

The NACA0012 airfoil coordinates are imported and a smooth curve is generated and then a flap is modeled as per the geometry. NACA0012
airfoil with and without a flap is shown in figure 3 and figure 2 respectively.

Fig 2. Airfoil without flap Fig 3. Airfoil with flap

COMPUTATIONAL DOMAIN

Figure 4 shows the entire flow domain under study. C grid mesh topology is used which enables to have a good analogy of any airfoil under
study as it captures the wake region vortices effectively. The airfoil is approximately at the center of the domain and the distance from the
leading edge to far-field is 20m. Distance from trailing edge to far field is also 20m. The radius of the semicircle is 20m. Computational domain
is considered as the control volume for solving the CFD governing equations.

Fig 4. Computational domain

436. Jeevan Sadalge, Dr.V.Ramesh and Dr. K.S.Shashishekar,. STALL CHARACTERISTICS OF SINGLE AND
MULTI-ELEMENT AIRFOIL. Journal for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 434-439

IV. GRID GENERATION

Figure 5 and figure 6 shows the grid generated around a simple and a flapped airfoil respectively. CFD solutions are strongly dependant on
the kind of grid generated. ICEM CFD is the mesh tool used to create a structured grid with quad elements. Mesh is much refined close to the
airfoil as the velocity variations are of great concern in that region. Also, mesh is much denser at the leading and trailing edge of the airfoil due
to the prevailing curvature at that region. Y+ value of 1 with first layer distance of order 10-6m from the wall is used for both the airfoils.
Growth rate of 1.2 is used for the analysis. This improves accuracy of the numerical results as it captures the viscous effects. The first layer
distance is calculated from y+ definition which depends on Reynolds number of flow.

Figure 5. Airfoil without flap Figure 6. Airfoil with flap

V. FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM IN FLUENT

In the present study, the flow is assumed to be steady and incompressible. Pressure based solver is used to have good convergence of the
solution. Turbulent model used is Spalart allmaras. Air is used as the fluid with constant density of 1.225kg/m3. The descritization of the flow and
turbulent models are solved through second order upwind scheme. Solution convergence is said to be achieved when the residuals approach an
order of 10-6.
VI. BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
Boundary conditions specify the flow variables at the boundaries of the physical model. They simplify the problem by reducing the unknown
variables at the time of solving governing equations of CFD. Inlet is specified as velocity inlet because changing the velocity components gives
corresponding angle of attack each time. Outlet is assumed as pressure outlet. Boundary condition for airfoil and flap is given as wall. The flow
parameters and solver specifications are as shown in table I. The boundary conditions are specified in Figure7.

TABLE I
FLOW PARAMETERS AND SOLVER SPECIFICATIONS

No. Parameter Details

6
1 Reynolds Number 3 10
2 Relative Velocity 43.822 m/s ( Mach 0.126)
3 Dynamic Viscosity 1.7894105 kg/ms
4 Density 1.225 kg/m3
5 Mesh C mesh
6 Turbulent Model Used Spalart Allmaras
7 Solver Used Pressure Based Solver

Fig7. Boundary conditions

437. Jeevan Sadalge, Dr.V.Ramesh and Dr. K.S.Shashishekar,. STALL CHARACTERISTICS OF SINGLE AND
MULTI-ELEMENT AIRFOIL. Journal for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 434-439

VII. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CFD analysis is carried out for NACA0012 airfoil with and without flap for a Reynolds number of 3 million. Lift coefficient (Cl) vs. angle of
attack is plotted for both types of airfoils and comparison is made with respect to increment in lift. Also the CFD values are validated with the
experimental results taken from the literature [4]. Figure 8 shows the graph o f Lift coefficient vs. angle of attack for both types of airfoils.

Fig 8. Lift coefficient vs. Angle of attack

Above figure shows that at 0 deg angle of attack there is no lift for airfoil without flap as pressure distribution is same both above and below
the airfoil. But for flapped airfoil, because of modified camber, the pressure distribution changes which influences the lift and hence there is
positive lift for 0 deg angle of attack under same flow conditions. The critical angle of attack is found and is 15 and 12 for plain and flapped
airfoil respectively. The CFD results are in close comparison with experimental results.

A. Contours of Absolute Pressure

1). Angle of Attack: 0 degree

Fig 9. Contours of absolute pressure Fig 10. Contours of absolute pressure

(Plain airfoil) (Flapped airfoil)

Figure 9 and figure 10 shows the contours of absolute pressure at 0 deg angle of attack for plain and flapped airfoil respectively. At 0 deg, there
is no lift for plain airfoil as pressure distribution on top and bottom surface of the airfoil is similar, but for flapped airfoil, pressure distribution
changes because of the flap and thus lift is observed. Flow accelerates on top surface because of the curvature and hence pressure there is less
compared to the bottom surface. Figure 11 and figure 12 shows the contours of absolute pressure at 14 deg for plain and flapped airfoil
respectively. At higher angle of attack, the airfoil experiences a greater pressure gradient and thus the lift increases up to the critical angle of
attack. The airfoil loses its lift ability after it reaches its critical angle of attack, because of flow separation. Greater the pressure gradient between
top and bottom surfaces of the airfoil, higher is the lift.
438. Jeevan Sadalge, Dr.V.Ramesh and Dr. K.S.Shashishekar,. STALL CHARACTERISTICS OF SINGLE AND
MULTI-ELEMENT AIRFOIL. Journal for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 434-439

2) Angle of Attack: 14 degree

Fig 11. Contours of absolute pressure Fig 12. Contours of absolute pressure
(Plain airfoil) (Flapped airfoil)

B. Coefficient of Pressure

Pressure coefficient or Cp represents the pressure distribution around an airfoil at all the points on airfoil surface for the given flow
conditions. It is a non-dimensional number which helps to compare different airfoils shapes. A negative Cp value indicates that lower pressure
than the atmospheric pressure.

1) Angle of attack: 0 degree

Fig 13. Coefficient of pressure vs. position Fig 14. Coefficient of pressure vs. Position
(Airfoil without flap) (Airfoil with flap)

Above figures show Cp vs. position of airfoil plots for the simple and flapped airfoil. These plots usually have two lines of which the upper line
represents the Cp values at top surface, and lower line gives Cp values at bottom surface of the airfoil. At 0 deg as the pressure gradient is almost
zero, there is no lift force thus both the lines coincides as shown in fig. 13. As a result of the change in the effective geometry some
positive lift is observed in case of flapped airfoil because of the pressure gradient as shown in fig.14. At 14 deg angle of attack, airfoil
experiences very high pressure gradient and hence the lift also increases suggesting the increase in lift with higher angles of attack as shown in
figures 15 and 16. Area enclosed by the curves in above graphs gives the lift force in N.

2) Angle of attack : 14 degree

Fig 15. Coefficient of pressure vs. position Fig 16. Coefficient of pressure vs. Position
(Airfoil without flap) (Airfoil with flap)
439. Jeevan Sadalge, Dr.V.Ramesh and Dr. K.S.Shashishekar,. STALL CHARACTERISTICS OF SINGLE AND
MULTI-ELEMENT AIRFOIL. Journal for Advanced Research in Applied Sciences; Pages: 434-439

VIII. CONCLUSION
The most promising conclusion derived is the increment in lift by having flap. By incorporating flap lift increases. Increment in lift has
advantages during takeoff conditions where it is required to maintain minimum runway length and take off speed. Critical angle of attack is
found for plain as well as flapped airfoil and is 15 and 12 respectively. CFD results are compared with experimental results for the validation and
are found to be in agreement.

REFERENCES
[1]. Karna S. Patel, Saumil B. Patel, Utsav B. Patel, Prof. Ankit P. Ahuja," CFD Analysis of an Aerofoil", International Journal of Engineering
Research, Vol. 3, Issue 3(2014).

[2]. B. Raghava Rao and Rangineni Sahitya, Numerical And Experimental Investigation of The Flow Field Around NACA 0012 Aerofoil",
International Journal on Theoretical and Applied Research in Mechanical Engineering Vol. 4, Issue 4(2015).

[3]. Deepa M. S, Nithya S. N. and Karthik Prabhu, " Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Flow past Stationary NACA 0012 Aerofoil Using
FLUENT, International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT), Vol 2, Issue 12(2013).

[4]. Eastman N. Jacobb and Albert Sherman, "Airfoil section characteristics as affected by the variations of the Reynolds number by," Report
no. 586, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Page no. 238.