Aerodynamics

Enhanced aerodynamic performance that avoids flow separation on wing surfaces has been traditionally achieved by appropriate aerodynamic design of airfoil sections.  However, when the wing design is driven by non-aerodynamic constraints (stealth, payload, etc.) the forces and moments of the resulting unconventional airfoil shape may be much smaller than on a conventional airfoil.  Therefore, either active or passive flow control techniques can be used to enhance aerodynamic performance throughout the flight envelop.

Although passive control devices, such as vortex generators, have proven, under some conditions, to be quite effective in delaying flow separation, they offer no proportional control and introduce a drag penalty when the flow does not separate (or when they are not needed).

In contrast, active flow control enables coupling of the control input to flow instabilities that are associated with flow separation and thus may enable substanial control authority at low actuation levels.  Furthermore, active actuation is largely innocuous except when activated and has the potential for delivering variable power.  In previous studies, active control efforts have employed a variety of techniques including external and internal acoustic excitation, vibrating ribbons or flaps, and steady or unsteady blowing.

Over the past couple of decades, the synthetic jet actuator has emerged as a versatile actuator for active flow control.  The formation and evoluation of synthetic jets are described in detail in the work of Smith & Glezer (1998), Glezer & Amitay (2002), Amitay and Cannelle (2006), Van Buren et al. (2014).  The effectiveness of fluidic actuators based on synthetic jets is derived from the interaction of these jets with the flow near the flow boundary that can lead to the formation of a quasi-closed recirculating flow region, resulting in a virtual modification of the shape of the surface.

The aerodynamic research at CeFPaC has several objectives:  (1) understand the flow physics of the flow field of the system in question, (2) understand the flow mechanisms associated with the interaction between the flow and the actuators, (3) explore, experimentally and numerically, the feasibility of using active flow control for flight control, (4) develop low order models of the flow, and (5) develop a closed-loop control schemes.

Projects in Aerodynamics

The main contributor to the drag on motor vehicles is pressure drag, which heavily influences the fuel economy of the vehicle as well. The pressure drag forms due to the bluff-body type shape of sport utility vehicles (SUV) which creates an adverse pressure gradient at the rear of the vehicle. Other key areas that highly contribute to the drag on SUVs are around the wheels and the underbody, including the front and rear bumper. These specific locations around the vehicle will be the focus for study during this research.

In high speed rotorcraft applications, a large section of the retreating blade undergoes reverse flow due to a high advance ratio. Flow separation at the sharp aerodynamic leading edge during reverse flow (geometric trailing edge) leads to negative lift, pitching moment, and drag penalties. The kinematics of a rotor blade leads to a dynamic stall in reverse flow, which further accentuates the problem by causing unsteady loading. These problems have restricted the maximum forward speed of rotorcrafts to ~250 kts.

Fifth-Generation fighters such as the F-22 and F-35 favor chine-shaped forebodies which help reduce their Radar Cross-Section. The chine produces strong forebody vortices, which interact with the wing vortices. However, in certain conditions the interaction can produce asymmetric vortex breakdown, non-linear moments and roll departure. Future fighter aircraft will have this issue compounded as, to further reduce their RCS, future-generation fighter aircraft are projected to be tailless, sacrificing lateral control authority.

Separation is an adverse aerodynamic phenomenon resulting in loss of aerodynamic performance. Previous studies on separation have mainly dealt with a two-dimensional analysis due to the assumption that the third dimension was negligible or that it was too complicated to analyze, leading to an incomplete analysis. Literature has indicated however, that this is insufficient in understanding separation and needs to be studied as such as spanwise instabilities have been shown to play a major role in the flow field and physics.

This project is part of a collaboration with researchers at the University of Texas at Austin ( David Goldstein , Saikishan Suryanarayanan and  Efstathios Bakolas ) to reenergize boundary layers using naturally occurring coherent structures, or large-scale motions (LSMs). These LSMs are modelled as a train of hairpin vortices.

This project is a collaboration with RPI's Center for Mobility with Vertical Lift (MOVE) with contributions from Dr. Etana Ferede.  In high speed rotorcraft applications, a large section of the retreating blade undergoes reverse flow due to a high advance ratio. Flow separation at the sharp aerodynamic leading edge during reverse flow (geometric trailing edge) leads to negative lift, pitching moment, and drag penalties.

This project is an experimental investigation of separated flows over cantilevered wings with a cross-section NACA 0015.  The goal of this research is to link changes in the separated flow field to variations in aspect ratio, angle of attack, Reynolds number, sweep angle, and taper ratio.  The results include qualitative surface topology from oil flow visualization, quantitative flowfield measurements using Stereo Particle Image Velocimetry (SPIV) and Time-Resolved Stereo Particle Image Velocimetry.