CFD Simulation of Flow Past MAV Wings

Turbulent flow simulation past low aspect ratio (AR) thin wings used for two different MAV (Micro Air Vehicle) configurations viz. Black Kite and Golden Hawk have been carried out in order to analyze their aerodynamic characteristics. The Reynolds number for these two wings based on the root chord are 2.4 × 105 and 1.7 × 105 respectively. These simulations have been carried out using the in-house flow solution code to solve the Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (URANS) equations coupled to different turbulence models. The standard k-e model has been used to predict the turbulent flow past the Black Kite wing. The influence of three different turbulence models (standard k-e, SA and SST) in predicting the aerodynamic coefficient has been studied for the Golden Hawk wing. In the present study the aerodynamic characteristics computed for the two wing configurations are compared with the CSIR-NAL experiments. The cross flow patterns and the tip vortex for the Golden Hawk wing are presented and discussed.

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