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Drag reduction on a transonic airfoil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2022

Maurizio Quadrio Open the ORCID record for Maurizio Quadrio [Opens in a new window] ,
Alessandro Chiarini Open the ORCID record for Alessandro Chiarini [Opens in a new window] ,
Jacopo Banchetti ,
Davide Gatti Open the ORCID record for Davide Gatti [Opens in a new window] ,
Antonio Memmolo  and
Sergio Pirozzoli Open the ORCID record for Sergio Pirozzoli [Opens in a new window]
Maurizio Quadrio*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Aerospaziali, Politecnico di Milano, via La Masa 34, 20156 Milan, Italy
Alessandro Chiarini
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Aerospaziali, Politecnico di Milano, via La Masa 34, 20156 Milan, Italy
Jacopo Banchetti
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Aerospaziali, Politecnico di Milano, via La Masa 34, 20156 Milan, Italy
Davide Gatti
Affiliation:
Institute for Fluid Mechanics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Kaiserstr. 10, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
Antonio Memmolo
Affiliation:
High Performance Computing Department, CINECA Interuniversity Consortium, 40033 Bologna, Italy
Sergio Pirozzoli
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Aerospaziale, La Sapienza Università di Roma, Via Eudossiana, 00184 Rome, Italy
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

Flow control for turbulent skin-friction drag reduction is applied to a transonic airfoil to improve its aerodynamic performance. The study is based on direct numerical simulations (with up to 1.8 billion cells) of the compressible turbulent flow around a supercritical airfoil, at Reynolds and Mach numbers of $Re_\infty = 3 \times 10^{5}$ and $M_\infty =0.7$. Control via spanwise forcing is applied over a fraction of the suction side of the airfoil. Besides locally reducing friction, the control modifies the shock wave and significantly improves the aerodynamic efficiency of the airfoil by increasing lift and decreasing drag. Hence, the airfoil can achieve the required lift at a lower angle of attack and with a lower drag. Estimates at the aircraft level indicate that substantial savings are possible; when control is active, its energy cost becomes negligible thanks to the small application area. We suggest that skin-friction drag reduction should be considered not only as a goal, but also as a tool to improve the global aerodynamics of complex flows.

JFM classification

Flow Control: Drag reduction Turbulent Flows: Turbulence control
Type
JFM Rapids
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 942 , 10 July 2022 , R2
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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