Numerical Study of the Passive Method Efficiency of the Air By-Pass on the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Wing Flap

Aeronautical and Space-Rocket Engineering


Аuthors

Brutyan M. A., Pavlenko O. V.*, Ye Htun . **

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (National Research University), 9, Institutskiy per., Dolgoprudny, Moscow region, 141701, Russia

*e-mail: olga.v.pavlenko@yandex.ru
**e-mail: yetun53@gmail.com

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicle engineering is successfully replacing and displacing traditional aviation in solving many tasks of civil aviation, in the field of terrain monitoring, cargo delivery to remote areas, as well as obtaining real-time operational information. The unmanned complexes creation belongs to a high-tech industry that requires significant investments in research, technology, design developments and production. Currently, such products are in demand all over the world. 
Initially, the unmanned aerial vehicles were being developed to solve military tasks and weather forecasting services, but as of today, the demand for unmanned aerial vehicles in various areas of civil life has increased dramatically on the global trade market. The fields of the unmanned aerial vehicles application are multifaceted: monitoring of industrial infrastructure, agricultural and forest lands, chemical spraying for agricultural purposes, geophysical aerial photography, civil mail, which delivers products and goods, tracking transportation and cargo escort, monitoring the integrity of goods en route to their destination. 
The capability of the unmanned aerial vehicles safe operation on runways of limited length is mainly determined by the required level of wing bearing properties. The minimum allowable approach speed and, hence, the flight safety depend on the maximum lift coefficient value. It is known that the value of the maximum lift coefficient is being strongly affected by the disruption of the flow from the wing, the necessary condition for which is the presence of a positive pressure gradient. Thus, one of the of research areas for improving the wing’s load-bearing properties is the suppression of separation flow.
The article presents a new passive method for the mechanized wing flow-around controlling of an unmanned aerial vehicle by the profiled flow channels located discretely along the flap nose. It is demonstrated that this control method is effective both in cruising flight mode and in take-off mode with a deflected flap. 
The blow-out channel was modeled on an asymmetrical CLARC Y+ 12% profile in the 2D formulation of the problem. Modification of the channel for passive air passage from the lower surface to the upper one was being performed sequentially after analyzing computational results of the previous version. The purpose of the modifications consists in obtaining a flow in the channel with the least loss of momentum of the blown-out jet. It was found that the channel contours profiling for the air bypass on the CLARC Y+ wing profile allowed obtaining a rational channel shape with a smooth continuous flow and the highest pulse coefficient of the blown-out jet. The fact that the eliminating of the separation zone inside the channel increases the impulse coefficient of the blown jet by 20% indicates the need for special profiling of the rational contours of the channel for the blow-out.
tear-off zone elimination inside the channel increases the pulse coefficient of the blown-out jet by 20% indicates the need for special profiling of the rational contours of the channel for the blow-out.
Numerical studies in the 3D formulation of the problem of the passive flow control method to increase the lift-producing properties of an aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicle were performed with non-tilted and deflected flaps at δflap = 20° at Mach numbers M = 0.18 and Reynolds Re = 3.5  106. 
The article demonstrates that channels discretely located on the wing for the air jets passive blowing-out in cruising flight mode mainly affect the separation zone, reducing its size and creating a vacuum in the blowing-out area, resulting in reduced drag and increased lift. In the take-off mode, when applying passive blowing-out on a deflected flap, aerodynamic characteristics are improved over almost the entire computational range of angles of attack. The jets blow-out onto the flap allows herewith increasing the lifting force by 7% and reducing the drag of the unmanned aerial vehicle by 3%. 

Keywords:

passive flow-around control method, blowing-out onto the flap, unmanned aerial vehicle aerodynamic characteristics, CFD-methods

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