Numerical Investigations for Passive and Active Flow Control on Tiltrotor–Wing Aerodynamic Interactions
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 34, Issue 6
Abstract
Numerical investigations for passive and active controls on aerodynamic interactions of the rotor/wing of a tiltrotor aircraft are conducted in hovering flight. The moving embedded grid method and the helicopter code CLORNS are adopted to simulate the unsteady flowfield of the tiltrotor/wing, and the droop leading edge (DLE), trailing edge flap (TEF), and blowing jet are combined to investigate the control effects on the download of a wing in a three-dimensional (3D) rotor/wing interaction environment. The numerical results indicate that both the passive and active controls have the possibility to decrease the download of a wing, and the download coefficient could be reduced by approximately 72.4% using the combination of DLE and TEF. Moreover, the jet with a combination of DLE and TEF could effectively suppress the flow separation at the trailing edge region, thus improving the aerodynamic characteristics of the tiltrotor and wing, and the loss of rotor thrust and download of the wing could be reduced to 10.3% and 60.6%, respectively.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all of the data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This research has benefited greatly from the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grants 11872211 and 12072156, the National Key Laboratory Foundation of China (61422010401), and a project funded by the priority academic program development of Jiangsu higher education institutions.
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 34 • Issue 6 • November 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 30, 2020
Accepted: Feb 11, 2021
Published online: Aug 24, 2021
Published in print: Nov 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jan 24, 2022
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