Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Fluids and Structures

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfs

Feedback flow control of a low-Re airfoil by flap actuators

Kyoji Inaoka n, Toshiki Mori, Masashi Yamaguchi, Mamoru Senda
Department of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe, Kyoto 610-0321, Japan

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: The present paper describes the applicability of the active flow control device, mini
Received 21 March 2015 electromagnetic flap actuators attached on the leading edge of an airfoil, for the flow
Accepted 20 August 2015 separation under both the steady and the unsteady flow conditions in the low Reynolds
Available online 25 September 2015
number region. At first, lift and drag have been measured for a wide variety of the wind
Keywords: speed Reynolds numbers and the angles of attack for the steady flow condition. Then,
Airfoil effects of some simple feedback flow controls, where the time-dependent signal of the
Active flow control lift-drag ratio have been used to detect the stall and served as a trigger to start the
Feedback actuation, have been explored under the unsteady flow condition for evading the stall. In
Flap actuators
every low Reynolds number ranging from 30 000 to 80 000, the present actuators worked
Stall
quite well to delay the stall, increasing in the lift and delaying the stall angle of attack.
These aerodynamic modifications by the flap actuators obtained from the steady flow
were found to be available even if the manipulation of the actuators started after the stall.
Activation threshold of the lift-drag ratio as the input for the feedback control was
determined from a stall classification map obtained under the steady flow experiment.
Effectiveness of this feedback control was then demonstrated under the condition of the
wind speed decrease (Reynolds number from 80 000 to 40 000) keeping the angle of
attack constant at 11°, at which the stall occurs without the active control. Immediately
after the sudden velocity decrease, the decrease in the lift-drag ratio were detected and
the dynamic actuations were successfully started, resulting in evading the stall and
keeping high and stable lift. An additional operation of the feedback, in which the running
actuation is turned off when the lift-drag ratio shows lower than the second threshold
value after operation, was revealed to be effective to keep the high lift force under the
condition combined with the wind speed increase and decrease within the low Reynolds
number range treated in this study.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Flow control for enhancing aerodynamic performance of an airfoil, preventing the flow separation and increasing lift
force with small drag penalty, has been of great interest in the field of fluid engineering. Many flow control devices char-
acterized as passive or active control methods have been examined for delaying the flow separation over the past decades.
Passive devices such as vortex generators are well known effective in delaying flow separation under some conditions (Lin,
2002), however, often produce sizeable drag in cruise conditions at low angle of attack, where the flow does not separate
and no control is required. In particular, in a small unmanned aerial vehicle used for environmental observations and/or
disaster reliefs, because the airfoil is more sensitive to wind velocity fluctuations associated with regional weather changes

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 81 774 65 6463; fax: þ 81 774 65 6802.
E-mail address: kinaoka@mail.doshisha.ac.jp (K. Inaoka).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfluidstructs.2015.08.011
0889-9746/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
320 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330

Nomenclature L max maximum lift, N

Re wind speed Reynolds number
b spanwise width of the airfoil, mm t thickness of the airfoil, mm
c chord length of the airfoil, mm T time, s
CD coefficient of drag U∞ main stream velocity, m s  1
CL coefficient of lift x, y, z streamwise, wall-nomal and spanwise coor-
CL max coefficient of maximum lift dinates, m
D drag, N α angles of attack, degree
L lift, N ν kinetic viscosity of air, m2 s  1
L/D lift-drag ratio ρ density of air, kg m  3

and hence would be at higher risk of aerodynamic stall, adaptability of the conventional static device for the unsteady flow
condition seems unfortunately low. For such a small airfoil in a low Reynolds number range, therefore, the active flow
control methods that can operate responding to the momentary flow condition are more preferable than the passive
control ones.
From such a reason, to improve the flow separation around the airfoil in the low Reynolds number range, various active
flow control methods have been proposed and evaluated both experimentally and numerically, including acoustic gen-
erators (Zaman et al., 1987, Hsiao et al., 1994), piezoelectric actuators (Seifert et al., 1998), synthetic jets (McCormick, 2000;
You and Moin, 2008), plasma actuators (Post and Corke, 2004), active vortex generators (Shan et al., 2008), self-adapted
movable devices (Meyer et al., 2007, Brücker and Weidner, 2014) and so forth.
Zaman et al. (1987) showed that the acoustic excitation eliminates a pre-stall, periodic shedding of large-scale vortices
and achieves significant improvement in lift. Seifert et al. (1998) firstly demonstrated that 10 piezoelectric actuators
mounted along the span of the airfoil increase the lift coefficient by 20–22% and delay the stall by 2–4° from the baseline.
McCormick (2000) proposed an acoustically driven synthetic jets and showed that they can fully suppress separation in a
robust manner, demonstrating their practicality. You and Moin (2008) revealed that the synthetic jets actuation enhances
mixing between inner and outer regions of the boundary layer and effectively delays the onset of flow separation and causes
about 70% increase in the lift. Post and Corke (2004) revealed that weakly ionized plasma actuators enhance the reat-
tachment of the leading edge flow separation and produce the lift increase by about 40%. Shan et al. (2008) numerically
showed that the active vortex generators controlled by a duty cycle with an excitation frequency equal to the natural
frequency of the separation region are more effective than the passive ones for evading the flow separation. Meyer et al.
(2007) demonstrated that the self-activated movable pop-up flaps fitted on the airfoil enhance the lift by more than 10%,
though this device is driven by flow itself, meaning exactly a passive device with no external energy. Similar passive but
movable devices, self-adaptive hairy flaps, were investigated by Brücker and Weidner (2014), and they indicated that the
hairy flaps of an appropriate flap length can delay the stall without external energy.
All of these active flow control devices have been found definitely effective in delaying the flow separation. However,
these results were obtained only under steady flow conditions, that is, the flow speed was kept constant at a certain value.
Considering the actual flight condition from takeoff to landing, time-dependent change of the attitude of the aircraft or of
the angle of attack of the airfoil should be necessary to study. Thus, their results are still insufficient for the small airfoil
frequently exposed to the wind speed change, and to demonstrate the effect of these devices under unsteady flow condition
assuming the stall is very important for evading the stall in the actual flight. Nevertheless, discussion on each adaptability of
the active control device to the wind speed change has not been made in the past literatures. Therefore in this study, a wind
tunnel experiment has been carried out under the condition of the wind speed changes to obtain one of the basic insights
into the essential benefit of such active flow control devices under the unsteady flow condition.
The present authors have focused on the case where electromagnetic flap actuators (Suzuki et al., 2004, Inaoka et al.,
2004,2009, Kawamura et al., 2012, Yamaguchi et al., 2013) have been attached at the leading edge of the airfoil. In our
previous study (Inaoka et al. 2009), where the effect of these actuators on the lift and drag was measured under the steady
flow condition at the Reynolds number of 50 000, it is revealed that an operation at an appropriate frequency is capable of
delaying the flow separation and increasing the lift. Further study (Kawamura et al., 2012), in which the angle of attack of
the airfoil was increased temporally at a constant angular speed under the condition that the stall would occur without the
active control, demonstrated that a basic feedback control using the decrease of the time-dependent lift as an input to start
the operation of the actuation works quite well to achieve increase in the lift and to avoid the stall.
In this paper, the applicability of the electromagnetic flap actuators (hereafter called actuators) under the unsteady flow
condition has been examined. First of all, under the steady flow condition, lift, drag and its lift-drag ratio of the airfoil with
and without actuation have been measured for a wide variety of the wind speeds and the angles of attack. The chord length
Reynolds number was changed ranging from 30 000 to 80 000. Secondly, under the unsteady flow condition, where the
approaching wind speed has suddenly been decreased or increased within the Reynolds number from 40 000 to 80 000,
 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330 321

three kind of feedback control experiments, in which the time-dependent signal of the lift-drag ratio has been used as the
input signal to detect the pre-stall and fed it back to start the actuation, have been conducted to demonstrate the applic-
ability of this dynamic control device for evading the stall.

2. Experimental apparatus and procedures

2.1. Wind tunnel, airfoil with electromagnetic actuators

Measurements of lift L, drag D and lift-drag ratio L /D were done in a low speed wind tunnel having a 1 m  1 m cross
section at Doshisha University. The turbulence level in the main stream was below 0.5%. As illustrated in Fig. 1, a symmetric
airfoil (similar to a NACA0012 airfoil) was used as in the previous study (Inaoka et al., 2009, Kawamura et al., 2012,
Yamaguchi et al., 2013). Its chord length c, spanwise width b and thickness t were 150 mm, 620 mm and 18.8 mm,
respectively. Thirty sets of electromagnetic flap actuators were mounted along the span of the airfoil at 15 mm downstream
from the leading edge of the airfoil. Each flap actuator made of polyimide film was 10 mm wide, 12 mm long and 25 μm
thick and had a copper circuit on it. A current supply through each circuit with its direction change at a certain frequency
can make the actuator up-and-down flapping motion perpendicular to the airfoil by the interaction with a permanent
magnet embedded below the actuator in the airfoil. An amplitude of the downstream edge of the actuator was set to be
4.1 mm. A two-dimensional mode, where all actuators operated at an identical amplitude and in-phase, was conducted in
this study because the maximum effect on the stall delay was obtained in the previous study (Inaoka et al., 2009). Power
input required for the operation of all actuators was 20 W in the present study.
Schematic view of an experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 2. The airfoil together with the coordinate system is illustrated
in Fig. 3. Multi-component load cell was used to measure the lift L and the drag D. The output voltage from the load cell was
converted to a digital signal through strain measurement module and recorded as the time-series signals of L and D.
Accuracy of this measurement system was 0.001 N. The uncertainty was within 73% in the lift-drag ratio around the stall
angle of attack. Data acquisition frequency was 500 Hz and the data over five seconds were processed to obtain the time
averaged value for steady flow experiment. In the feedback control experiment, acquisition frequency was set 120 Hz due to
the response limitation of the feedback control device. The data were smoothed with moving average method to avoid a
useless response.
Smoke-wire method was applied to visualize the separated flow structures around the airfoil. For this, a nichrome wire of
0.1 mm diameter coating with liquid paraffin was stretched to the upstream of the airfoil and a pulsed DC voltage was
applied. Smokes were illuminated by green laser sheet of 2 mm thickness and taken by a high-speed video camera (Pho-
toron, SA-3). Image size was 640  1024 pixels and sampling speed was 4000 fps.
As Eq. (1), the chord length c and the mainstream velocity U∞ were used for defining the wind speed Reynolds number.
U∞ c
Re = ,
ν (1)

Fig. 1. A symmetric airfoil with mini electromagnetic flap actuators.

where ν is the kinetic viscosity of air. Coefficients of the lift CL and the drag CD were defined as Eqs. (2) and (3), respectively.
322 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330

Fig. 2. An experimental apparatus with measurement equipment.

Fig. 3. An airfoil and coordinate system.

2L
CL = 2
,
ρU∞ bc (2)

2D
CD = 2
,
ρU∞ bc (3)

where ρ is the density of air.

2.2. Measurement of lift and drag under steady flow condition

The time averaged lift L and drag D were measured for the wind speed Reynolds number Re varying from 30 000 to 80
000 and angles of attack of the airfoil α from 0 to 20°. Experiments were done with and without actuation to grasp the effect
of the actuators, summarizing a stall classification map in the relationship between Re and α . The effective actuation
frequency was varied depending on the wind speed Reynolds number. Hence, the optimum frequency was given so that the
Strouhal number based on the chord length and the mainstream velocity is to be from 0.6 to 0.65 (Inaoka et al., 2009). This
frequency almost coincides with the generation frequency of the clockwise vortex in the separation shear layer under the
stalled condition without operation.

2.3. Feedback control for large wind speed decrease: Case FS and small wind speed decrease: Case FN

As the first feedback control experiment for a simple dynamic flow change, a large decrease of the wind speed which
would lead to the stall if no-actuation, was given as Case FS (Feedback control under the Stall condition). For this, we
squeezed the flow control valve of the wind tunnel and decreased the wind speed so that the Reynolds number was changed
from Re¼80 000 to 40 000. In this experiment, the angle of attack α was kept constant to be 11°, at which the airfoil was not
stalled at Re¼80 000 but stalled at Re¼40 000 by the result of the stall classification map as will be discussed in the next
chapter. Time-dependent wind velocity was monitored by pitot tube which was set close to the airfoil, and instantaneous
 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330 323

signals of L and D were acquired as well. Note that in this paper, we adopted this temporal signal of the lift-drag ratio, L/D , as
an input for the feedback control. Given the feedback condition so that an abrupt decrease of the lift-drag ratio below a
threshold value is detected, the signal of L/D was used to start the operation of the flap actuators. The obtained results were
compared to those of our previous study (Yamaguchi et al., 2013), where a detection of the wind speed decrease itself was
used as the input signal to start the actuation. As will be explained later, L/D = 9 was used as the threshold value.
As for the second feedback control experiment, Case FN (Feedback control under the No-stall condition), a similar flow
condition but a small decrease of the wind speed was examined. In this case, the wind speed was changed from Re ¼80 000
only to 60 000, where the airfoil would not experience the stall.

2.4. Feedback control for wind speed change: Case FCS

Final feedback control experiment was done in which the wind speed was continuously changed (i.e., decrease and/or
increase) as Case FCS (Feedback control under Continuous Stall condition). At first, the wind speed was set at Re¼60 000,
then varied within the range from 40 000 to 80 000 including the stall condition if no-actuation. The same feedback control
was adopted as in the Case FS, however, the running actuation was turned off when the lift drag ratio detected a value lower
than the second threshold.

3. Results and discussions

3.1. Lift and drag characteristics for the steady flow condition

First of all, basic aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil and the effect of the actuators are presented. Fig. 4(a) shows
the typical example of the lift coefficient CL and the drag coefficient CD at Re¼40 000. Solid symbol is the result obtained in
the case of no-actuation (baseline) while open symbol is in the case with actuation. Without actuation, with increasing
angles of attack α , the value of CL monotonically increases and takes the maximum at a critical angle of attack, α = 10
degrees. After that angle, the value of CL turns to decrease and takes low value, meaning that the large flow separation
occurs around the airfoil, i.e., the airfoil is in the stalled situation (Inaoka et al., 2009). In contrast, with actuation, both of the
maximum value of CL and the stall angle of attack become much larger than those of no-actuation case, although CL
increases almost similarly as that without actuation at the low angle of attack. Thus, the actuation is effective to increase the
lift and delay the stall angle of attack at Re ¼40 000. Fig. 4(b) shows the variation of the lift-drag ratio L/D against the angle
of attack. At low angle of attack typically from 3 to 7°, the value of L/D with actuation becomes lower compared to that of

Fig. 4. Coefficients of lift, drag and lift-drag ratio obtained at Re ¼ 40 000. (a) Coefficients of lift and drag. (b) Lift-drag ratio.
324 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330

no-actuation due to the relative drag increase, indicating that the operation of the actuators is inappropriate from a point of
view of airfoil performance. In contrast, from the angle just before the stall, CD decreases and the value of L/D maintains
relatively high until around 13°, though it is lower than the maximum value of no-actuation.
Fig. 5(a) illustrates the maximum lift and drag occurring at the stall angle of attack at each Reynolds number while
Fig. 5(b) represents their coefficients, respectively. The maximum lift increases with increasing Reynolds number. As can be
seen in Fig. 5(b), the given actuation plays a role to increase the maximum lift coefficient in every Reynolds number from 30
000 to 80 000 but its effect decreases as increasing Reynolds number.
Fig. 6 summarizes the lift coefficient CL as contour distributions obtained (a) without actuation and (b) with actuation for
the Reynolds number and angle of attack. To clarify the presence of the stall, the situation of the airfoil is also shown as
overlaid symbols, black circle and x mark indicate no-stall and stall, respectively. Note that as for Fig. 6(b), red circle
represents the change from stalled situation to no-stall one caused by the actuation. Comparing Fig. 6(a) and (b), it is found

3.2
2.8 L actuation
L no-actuation
2.4
D actuation
2.0 D no-actuation
1.6
1.2
0.8
0.4
0.0
3 4 5 6 7 8
Re 10

0.8

0.6
C
0.4 C no-actuation
C actuation
C no-actuation
0.2

0.0
3 4 5 6 7 8
Re 10

Fig. 5. Maximum lift and drag at the stall angle of attack for various Reynolds number. (a) Maximum lift and drag at the stall angle of attack. (b) Coefficients
of the maximum lift and drag at the stall angle.

Fig. 6. Stall classification map with the lift coefficient for angle of attack and Reynolds number. (a) No-actuation. (b) Actuation. (For interpretation of the
references to color in this figure, the reader is referred to the web version of this article).
 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330 325

that relatively high values of the lift coefficient spread not only toward the larger angle of attack but also the lower Reynolds
number by the actuation. As it is also seen in Fig. 6(a), the stall angle of attack increases with increasing the Reynolds
number. As mentioned above, the actuation delays the stall angle of attack at every Reynolds number, however as is con-
firmed in Fig. 6(b), this effect becomes smaller with increasing the Reynolds number and disappears at an angle of attack
exceeding 14°.
Fig. 7(a) and (b) compare contour distributions of the value of the lift-drag ratio L/D corresponding to Fig. 6(a) and (b).
Note that in Fig. 7(a) and (b), the situation of the airfoil with actuation shown in Fig. 6(a) and (b) was overlaid with the same
symbols as a reference. The value of L/D with actuation becomes slightly lower than that of no-actuation case in the area of
the low angle of attack due to the drag increase by the actuation. In contrast, L/D becomes higher at the larger angle of

Fig. 7. Stall classification map with the lift-drag ratio for angle of attack and Reynolds number. (a) No-actuation. (b) Actuation. (For interpretation of the
references to color in this figure, the reader is referred to the web version of this article).

Fig. 8. Lift-drag ratio at the angle of attack of 11° for various Reynolds numbers. (a) Lift and its coefficient. (b) Lift-drag ratio.
326 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330

attack than the stall angle. Thus, it is confirmed that the operation of the actuator is not preferable at the low angle of attack
but preferable above that just before the stall angle. To take full advantage of this characteristic of the dynamic actuation,
the present study focused on this boundary (drawn as a pink line in Fig. 7(a)) and determined that the value of L/D = 9, the
one just before the stall angle, was adopted as threshold to start the operation in the feedback control experiment.
Fig. 8(a) presents the lift L and its coefficient CL variations for the Reynolds number when the angle of attack was set 11°.
Fig. 8(b) shows the corresponding value of the lift-drag ratio L/D as well. As is confirmed in Fig. 8(a), the actuation effect
becomes smaller with increasing the Reynolds number. However, from Fig. 8(b), in the region larger than Re¼60 000, the
value of L/D with actuation becomes lower than that without actuation. This means that the actuation unnecessarily
lowered the aerodynamic performance due to extra increase in the drag rather than the lift when the baseline airfoil is
clearly not in the stalled situation, and this phenomenon will be taken into account in the operation. To avoid this
degradation of the aerodynamic performance in the feedback system, the value of L/D = 10 was determined to turn off the
actuation as the second threshold when the actuators are running.

3.2. Effect of the actuators on separation suppression

One of the other basic aspects of the present active actuators worth to mention is presented here before going to the
results for the unsteady flow conditions. Since the stall angle of attack is 10° for instance at Re¼40 000, stall occurs at 11°
without actuation whereas stall does not occur with actuation. This implies that the dynamic operation of the actuator is
possible to change the flow situation from stalled to no-stall one. Fig. 9 shows the time variations of L and D when the
actuation began to start at T equals to 5 seconds, where the angle of attack was 11° and Reynolds number was 40 000. It can
be seen that the lift signal fluctuated up and down with time before the actuation, indicating that the airfoil was in the
stalled situation. However, just after the operation, the lift clearly increased and then maintained relatively stable and
higher value than that before. Thus, even in the stalled situation, the actuator operation works effective to recover from the
stall. Fig. 10 shows the smoke-wire image shots of the flow behavior around the airfoil simultaneously taken with the lift
signal in Fig. 9 and the present flow control mechanism is explained here. Under this flow condition, a large-scale flow
separation with clockwise vortex has originally occurred from the leading edge of the airfoil. The first upward motion of the
actuator once pushes the flow to the upward and makes a clear flow separation aligned along the flap (Fig. 10(a)). Then, the
followed downward motion of the actuator draws the flow close to the airfoil surface. Owing to this, the separation shear
layer becomes to be distorted and high-momentum fluid flow is entrained closer to the airfoil surface (Fig. 10(b)). This fluid
motion generates a clockwise vortex much closer to the airfoil surface than that periodically generated in the original
separation shear layer in the stalled situation (Fig. 10(c)), although the vortex is not clear because its downstream tip hits the
airfoil surface and goes break its form as it flows to the downstream (Fig. 10(d)). Thereafter, by repeating this flap motions
with the optimum frequency of the actuators, the clockwise vortex is then generated near the airfoil surface, thereby
preventing the large-scale flow separation (Fig. 10(e)). Thus, the present flap actuators play a role to generate the clockwise
vortex not far but closer to the airfoil and to sweep the vortex downstream along the airfoil surface (Fig. 10(f)). This sup-
presses the flow separation and causes the stable and high lift after the actuation.

3.3. Feedback control of Case FS and Case FN

Fig. 11 presents the time variations of the lift L and the lift-drag ratio L/D obtained in the Case FS experiment, for the large
wind speed decrease from Re¼80 000 to 40 000. As seen in Fig. 6(a) of the stall classification map under steady flow
condition, the airfoil is not stalled at Re ¼80 000 but stalled at Re¼40 000. Red line indicates the result without actuation
while blue line represents with actuation where a simple feedback system starts the actuation if the lift-drag ratio detects
the value lower than 9. At the upper part of Fig. 11, the time trace of the velocity signal obtained by the pitot tube is shown

Fig. 9. Time variations of lift and drag from the stalled situation to the no-stall one (α ¼11°, Re¼ 40 000).
 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330 327

Fig. 10. Flow behaviors taken after actuation (α ¼11°, Re¼ 40 000).

Fig. 11. Time variations of the lift and lift-drag ratio in the Case FS experiment. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure , the reader is
referred to the web version of this article).
328 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330

Fig. 12. Flow around the airfoil at 13 s in the Case FS experiment.

Fig. 13. Time variations of the lift and lift-drag ratio in the Case FN experiment. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article).

while on and/or off of the actuation is indicated below that. Five seconds after the start of the experiment, wind speed
decrease was given from Re¼ 80 000 to 40 000. It took about 10 s to reach the low speed.
At first, it is noted that during the first five seconds, both values of the lift with and without actuation are almost the
same. After five seconds, the value of the lift without actuation significantly decreased with decreasing the wind speed, then
at 11 s, L/D started to fluctuate up and down. This fluctuation continued even after the wind speed decrease was completed.
Since this fluctuation occurred just after the value L reached 0.6 N, corresponding to the maximum lift for Re ¼ 40 000 (see
Fig. 5(a)), where the flow around the airfoil would be in the stall condition. Here, Fig. 12 shows the flow structure visualized
after 13 s for (a) without and (b) with actuation. It can be seen that from Fig. 12(a), the large flow separation occurred from
the leading edge of the airfoil, hence exactly in the stalled situation. In contrast, with feedback actuation given by L/D
decrease detection, it is confirmed by blue line in Fig. 11 that the actuator operation was started at 11 s, just before the lift
reached the maximum value for Re¼40 000. Although the value of the lift decreased in a similar manner to that without
actuation at the beginning, no fluctuation can be observed. After around 12 s, the value of the lift was taken asymptotically
to 0.6 N, the maximum lift for Re¼40 000. As seen in Fig. 12(b), although small flow separation was observed at the leading
edge, the fluids seem to flow almost along the airfoil. Therefore, it was demonstrated that the actuator operation with this
feedback system can evade the stall against the sudden wind decrease and moreover, it was found that the value of the lift
after this operation coincides to that of the steady flow experiment seen in Fig. 5(a). Here, comparing to the green line which
was obtained by the feedback control using the wind decrease detection treated in the previous study (Yamaguchi et al.,
2013), the feedback control by the present L/D decrease detection is more preferable because it achieves almost the same
 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330 329

Fig. 14. Time variations of the lift and lift-drag ratio in the Case FCS experiment. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure, the reader is
referred to the web version of this article).

stable lift and lift-drag ratio as the previous one with shorter response time and thus more advantageous to the evade of the
stall.
Fig. 13 shows the results of the Case FN experiment for the small wind speed decrease from Re ¼ 80 000 to 60 000. Here,
the airfoil is not stalled at Re¼60 000 as seen in Fig. 6(a) for the steady flow condition. Blue line indicates the result of the
L/D decrease detection while green line represents the wind speed detection (Yamaguchi et al., 2013). In both cases, the
airfoil were not stalled, however, the value of L/D became low in the case of wind decrease detection due to the drag
increase by the actuation. Since the value of L/D was not experienced less than 9 during the period of wind speed decrease
for this experiment, the actuator was not activated in the case of the L/D decrease detection. This leads to a higher value of
L/D than that of the wind decrease detection. Therefore, the feedback control by L/D decrease detection is more desirable
due to no extra operation, that is, actuation starts proper running only for the flow condition that would lead to the stall if it
had not be operated.

3.4. Feedback control of Case FCS

Fig. 14 shows the results of the Case FCS (Feedback control under Continuous Stall condition) experiment. As seen in this
figure, various wind speed was continuously given in this experiment. From five seconds to 15 s during which the first
period of the large wind speed decrease, results similar to those in Fig. 11 are observed. Namely, with the wind speed
decrease, the value of the lift without actuation significantly decreased accompanied by fluctuations and the stall occurred,
however, in the case of the feedback control with L/D decrease detection, the lift remained stable and retained a high value
corresponding to that for the wind speed at that instant. Next, from 15 s to 25 s where the wind speed increased, as seen in
the plots for the L/D decrease detection, operation of the actuator was stopped at about 16 s because the value of the lift-
drag ratio experienced the second threshold value lower than 10. After this time, the traces of the lift for two cases with and
without actuation showed almost the same. Similar trends were observed after 25 s even though the airfoil experienced
speed change with larger amplitude. Here, the green line again indicates the result of the wind speed detection control.
Although the airfoil was not stalled in both actuation cases, the L/D decrease detection indicates a shorter response time to
the wind speed change than that of the wind speed detection, thus it seems to be more preferable.

4. Concluding remarks

Aerodynamic characteristics have been examined on an airfoil with electromagnetic flap actuators for evading the stall in
the low Reynolds number region from 30 000 to 80 000. Since the operation of the actuators is capable of inducing the flow
along the airfoil, both the maximum lift and the stall angle of attack increase by the actuation, whereas the lift-drag ratio
330 K. Inaoka et al. / Journal of Fluids and Structures 58 (2015) 319–330

decreases at a lower angle of attack before the stall due to the drag increase. Within the effective range, the actuators work
well to recover the flow from the stalled condition. It was demonstrated that the simple feedback control, where the
instantaneous signal of the lift-drag ratio has been used as an input to detect the stall and served as a trigger to start the
actuation (and a trigger to stop the actuation after operation), effectively works to evade the stall and maintain the high lift
not only for the wind speed decrease but also for the condition of the continuous wind speed increase and decrease.

References

Brücker, C., Weidner, C., 2014. Influence of self-adaptive hairy flaps on the stall delay of an airfoil in ramp-up motion. J. Fluids Struct. 47, 31–40, http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/j.jfluidstructs.2014.02.014.
Hsiao, F.-B., Shyu, R.-N., Chang, R.C., 1994. High angle-of-attack airfoil performance improvement by internal acoustic excitation. Am. Inst. Aeronaut.
Astronaut. J. 32 (3), 655–656, http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/3.12034. 1994.
Inaoka, K., Nakamura, K., Senda, M., 2004. Heat transfer control of a backward-facing step flow in a duct by means of miniature electromagnetic actuators.
Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 25 (5), 711–720, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2004.05.006.
Inaoka, K., Ohdake, T., Tsukamoto, K., Senda, M., 2009. Stall control of a symmetric airfoil by means of miniature electromagnetic actuators. Trans. JSME Ser.
B 75 (752), 683–690, http://dx.doi.org/10.1299/kikaib.79.2134.
Kawamura, K., Hamasaki, Y., Inaoka, K., Senda, M., 2012. Detection of a stall of a symmetric airfoil and its feedback control (Demonstration for an increasing
angle mode). Trans. JSME Ser. B 78 (796), 2087–2095, http://dx.doi.org/10.1299/kikaib.78.2087.
Lin, J.C., 2002. Review of research on low-profile vortex generators to control boundary-layer separation. Prog. Aerosp. Sci. 38 (4  5), 389–420, http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/S0376-0421(02)00010-6.
McCormick, D.C., 2000. Boundary layer separation control with directed synthetic jets. Am. Inst. Aeronaut. Astronaut. 2000–0519 http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/
6.2000-519.
Meyer, R., Hage, W., Bechert, D.W., Schatz, M., Knacke, T., Thiele, T., 2007. Separation control by self-activated movable flaps. Am. Inst. Aeronaut. Astronaut.
J. 45 (1), 191–199, http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.23507.
Post, M.L., Corke, T.C., 2004. Separation control on high angle of attack airfoil using plasma actuators. Am. Inst. Aeronaut. Astronaut. J. 42 (11), 2177–2184,
http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.2929.
Seifert, A., Eliahu, S., Greenblatt, D., Wygnanski, I., 1998. Use of piezoelectric actuators for airfoil separation control. Am. Inst. Aeronaut. Astronaut. J. 36 (8),
1535–1537, http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/2.549.
Shan, H., Jiang, L., Liu, C., Love, M., Maines, B., 2008. Numerical study of passive and active flow separation control over a NACA0012 airfoil. Comput. Fluids
37, 975–992, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compfluid.2007.10.010.
Suzuki, H., Kasagi, N., Suzuki, Y., 2004. Active control of an axisymmetric jet with distributed electromagnetic flap actuators. Exp. in Fluids 36, 498–509,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00348-003-0756-0.
Yamaguchi, T., Yamaguchi, M., Hamasaki, Y., Inaoka, K., Senda, M., 2013. Feedback control of a flow around a symmetric airfoil (Applicability of the
electromagnetic actuators for the wind speed decrease). Trans. JSME Ser. B 79 (806), 2134–2137, http://dx.doi.org/10.1299/kikaib.79.2134.
You, D., Moin, P., 2008. Active control of flow separation over an airfoil using synthetic jets. J. Fluids Struct. 24, 1349–1357, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.
jfluidstructs.2008.06.017.
Zaman, K.B.M.Q., Bar-Server, A., Mangalam, S.M., 1987. Effect of acoustic excitation on the flow over a low-Re airfoil. J. Fluid Mech. 182, 127–148, http://dx.
doi.org/10.1017/S0022112087002271.