Study of Sinusoidal Perturbations on the Leading Edge of an Aircraft Wing

摘要

The application of leading edge sinusoidal tubercles applied on anaircraft wing is believed to improve the aerodynamic performance in termsof lift and drag as well as the stall characteristics of the wing. A NACA 2421airfoil model was selected to mimic the whale flippers with the tubercleconfiguration on the leading edge of a tapered wing of 0.5 taper ratio, as itachieved better aerodynamic performance in comparison to 1.0, 0.7, and 0.3taper ratios. The analysis was conducted at Mach 0.2 for low-speed aircraftwith varying tubercle locations across the wingspan; full, half and quarterspan. The results obtained showed how the tubercle configurations locatedacross the full span of A2W30 attained. Particularly, 5.42% more liftproduced than the unmodified wing at the stalling AOA, while the liftcoefficient of the A8W30 Quarter Span model in the post-stall regimedropped by 14.68% in contrast to the unmodified wing that experienced a22.58% drop in lift coefficient. The modified wing with tuberclesexperienced enhanced performance at the optimum Re of 1,000,000 andadditionally, it showed how tubercles helped in reducing the acoustic powerlevels which could contribute to a minimal loss of aircraft energy in terms ofsound energy.