CFD Investigation on the Hydrodynamic Characteristics of Blended Wing Unmanned Underwater Gliders With Emphasis on the Control Surfaces

Author(s):  
Mukesh Guggilla ◽  
Vijayakumar Rajagopalan

Abstract Underwater Gliders are unique buoyancy propelled oceanographic profiling vehicles. Their speed and endurance in longitudinal motion are affected by the symmetry, sweep dihedral angle and span of the control surfaces. In the low-velocity regime, these parameters can be varied to examine the flow around the glider. They also affect the lift-to-drag ratio (L/D) essential for the manoeuvring path in longitudinal and transverse motions. In this paper, the sweep angle of the main wing of a blended wing autonomous underwater glider configuration is varied as 10°, 15°, 30°, 45° and 60° and the resulting hull forms are numerically simulated in the commercial software, STARCCM+. The main wing is a tapered NACA0018 section (taken as per the general arrangement requirement) with 1.5m chord at the root and 0. 1m at the tip. The numerical model is validated using the CFD results of NACA0012 airfoil from Sun.C et al, 2015 [1]. The hydrodynamic forces are obtained by varying the angle of attack (α) of the body from −15° to 15°, for flow velocity of 0.4m/s. The hydrodynamic coefficients (lift-to-drag ratios) and flow physics around the wing are analyzed to arrive at an optimum Lift-to-drag ratio for increased endurance.

Author(s):  
Yunlong Ma ◽  
Guang Pan ◽  
Qiaogao Huang ◽  
Jinglu Li

In order to improve the maneuverability and stability of the Blended Wing Body (BWB) underwater glider, the trailing edge rudder is integrated into its shape design in this paper. Through the numerical simulation of CFD, the variation laws of the hydraulic parameters such as lift, drag, lift-to-drag ratio with the angle of attack and rudder angle are given. Compared with the traditional underwater glider, the BWB underwater glider not only has high loading capacity, but also has a maximum lift-to-drag ratio three times that of the former, resulting in higher energy efficiency. At the same time, by adding trailing edge rudders, the maneuverability of the BWB underwater glider is improved, and the lift-to-drag ratio under the same large rudder angle is increased by more than 30% compared with the variable-wing underwater glider. Finally, through the analysis of the numerical results and the cloud image, the difference interaction extent between the rudder and the body of the BWB underwater glider and the traditional torpedo or AUV is illustrated.


Author(s):  
Cheslav Balash ◽  
David Sterling ◽  
Matt Broadhurst ◽  
Arno Dubois ◽  
Morgan Behrel

In prawn-trawling operations, otter boards provide the horizontal force required to maintain net openings, and are typically low aspect ratio (∼0.5) flat plates operating on the seabed at high angles of attack (AOA; 35–40°). Such characteristics cause otter boards to account for up to 30% of the total trawling resistance, including that from the vessel. A recent innovation is the batwing otter board, which is designed to spread trawls with substantially less towing resistance and benthic impacts. A key design feature is the use of a sail, instead of a flat plate, as the hydrodynamic foil. The superior drag and benthic performance of the batwing is achieved by (i) successful operation at an AOA of ∼20° and (ii) having the heavy sea floor contact shoe in line with the direction of tow. This study investigated the hydrodynamic characteristics of a generic sail by varying its twist and camber, to identify optimal settings for maximum spreading efficiency and stability. Loads in six degrees of freedom were measured at AOAs between 0 and 40° in a flume tank at a constant flow velocity, and with five combinations of twist and camber. The results showed that for the studied sail, the design AOA (20°) provides a suitable compromise between greater efficiency (occurring at lower AOAs) and greater effectiveness (occurring at higher AOAs). At optimum settings (20°, medium camber and twist), a lift-to-drag ratio >3 was achieved, which is ∼3 times more than that of contemporary prawn-trawling otter boards. Such a result implies relative drag reductions of 10–20% for trawling systems, depending on the rig configuration.


Author(s):  
Yasumasa Watanabe ◽  
Kojiro Suzuki ◽  
Ethirajan Rathakrishnan

Breathing blunt nose technique is one of the promising methods for reducing the drag of blunt-nosed body at hypersonic speeds. The air, traversed by the bow shock positioned ahead of the nose, at the stagnation region is allowed to enter through a hole at the blunt-nose and ejected at the rear part (base region) of the body. This manipulation reduces the positive pressure over the stagnation regions of the nose and increases the pressure at the base, resulting in reduced suction at the base. The simultaneous manifestation of reducing the compression at the nose and suction at the base regions results in reduction of the total drag. The drag reduction caused by the breathing blunt nose technique has been measured in a Mach 7 tunnel. Also, the drag and flow field around the blunt-nosed body, with and without breathing hole, has been computed. The aerodynamic characteristics of the breathing blunt nose model obtained experimentally are compared with the CFD results. It is found that the breathing results in 5% reduction in drag. The lift coefficient also comes down for the model with breathing nose. But the lift-to-drag ratio is found to be the same for both the cases; the blunt-nosed body with and without nose-hole.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-39
Author(s):  
Parviz Ghadimi ◽  
Araz Tanha ◽  
Navid Nemati Kourabbasloo ◽  
Sasan Tavakoli

Abstract There is currently a significant focus on using boundary layer control (BLC) approach for controlling the flow around bodies, especially the foil sections. In marine engineering this is done with the hope of increasing the lift - to - drag ratio and efficiency of the hydrofoils. In this paper, effects of the method on hydrodynamic characteristics and tip vortex formation of a hydrofoil are studied. Steady water injection at the tip of the hydrofoil is simulated in different conditions by using ANSYS-CFX commercial software. Validity of the proposed simulations is verified by comparing the obtained results against available experimental data. Effects of the injection on the lift, drag, and lift - to - drag ratio are studied and the ranges within which the injection has the most positive or negative effects, are determined. Furthermore, flow pattern and pressure variation are studied upon the water injection to determine the most positive and negative case and to ascertain the main reasons triggering these phenomena.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Hussain Kazim ◽  
Abdullah Hamid Malik ◽  
Hammad Ali ◽  
Muhammad Usman Raza ◽  
Awais Ahmad Khan ◽  
...  

Purpose Winglets play a major role in saving fuel costs because they reduce the lift-induced drag formed at the wingtips. The purpose of this paper is to obtain the best orientation of the winglet for the Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA) M6 wing at Mach number 0.84 in terms of lift to drag ratio. Design/methodology/approach A computational fluid dynamics analysis of the wing-winglet configuration based on the ONERA M6 airfoil on drag reduction for different attack angles at Mach 0.84 was performed using analysis of systems Fluent. First, the best values of cant and sweep angles in terms of aerodynamic performance were selected by performing simulations. The analysis included cant angle values of 30°, 40°, 45°, 55°, 60°, 70° and 75°, while for the sweep angles 35°, 45°, 55°, 65° and 75° angles were used. The aerodynamic performance was measured in terms of the obtained lift to drag ratios. Findings The results showed that slight alternations in the winglet configuration can improve aerodynamic performance for various attack angles. The best lift to drag ratio for the winglet was achieved at a cant angle of 30° and a sweep angle of 65°, which caused a 5.33% increase in the lift to drag ratio. The toe-out angle winglets as compared to the toe-in angles caused the lift to drag ratio to increase because of more attached flow at its surface. The maximum value of the lift to drag ratio was obtained with a toe-out angle (−5°) at an angle of attack 3° which was 2.53% greater than the zero-toed angle winglet. Originality/value This work is relatively unique because the cant, sweep and toe angles were analyzed altogether and led to a significant reduction in drag as compared to wing without winglet. The wing model was compared with the results provided by National Aeronautics and Space Administration so this validated the simulation for different wing-winglet configurations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.13) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
A M Ahmad ◽  
R E M Nasir ◽  
Z A A Latif ◽  
W Kuntjoro ◽  
W Wisnoe ◽  
...  

Baseline 7 Blended Wing-Body design is introduced to study the behaviour of the control surfaces, given four elevons without vertical stabilizer and wingtip. The objective of the paper is to obtain an aerodynamic characteristic of a cranked planform blended wing-body aircraft. The airfoil used for the entire body is NACA 2412, which is selected for ease of fabrication process. The wingspan of the model is 1.4 m with 0.2 m thickness. The sweep angle of the model is fixed to 400. The wingspan area is calculated at 0.405 m2. The experiment is conducted at UTM-LST Wind Tunnel, AEROLAB, Skudai, Johor with test wind speed of 15 m/s. The maximum lift-to-drag ratio for the model is found to be around 21.9, which is better than many conventional aircraft. Nonetheless, the parabolic regression made to the drag versus lift plot only yields maximum lift-to-drag ratio of 10.0. The value of drag coefficient at zero lift is 0.012 while the maximum lift coefficient found is at 0.65 at 150 angle of attack. The lift-to-drag ratio improves 38.3% from 15.9 in the previously-published design. The neutral point is found to be located at 30.6% of the mean geometric chord in front of the wind tunnel model reference center or about 0.398 m from the nose of the 0.63 m long aircraft model or at 63.1% of aircraft length from the nose.  


2005 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-119
Author(s):  
P. M. Haese

AbstractThis paper presents an interior source method for the calculation of semi-infinite cavities behind two-dimensional bluff bodies placed at an angle of attack in a uniform stream. Aspects under consideration include the pressure distribution along the body, especially just ahead of the separation point, lift and drag forces, and how these quantities vary with the angle of attack. We include discussion of the physical conditions of separation, and identify critical angles of attack for which the cavitating flow past an airfoil may (a) become unstable, or (b) yield the greatest lift to drag ratio.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-58
Author(s):  
N. Talebanfard ◽  
A. B. Rahimi

An analysis is performed to study the supersonic flow over conical bodies of three different cross sections circular, elliptic and squircle (square with rounded corners) shaped. Perturbation method is applied to find flow variables analytically. In order to find lift and drag forces the pressure force on the body is found, the component along x is drag and the component along z is lift. Three equations are obtained for lift to drag ratio of each cross section. The graphs for L/D show that for a particular cross section an increase in angle of attack, increases L/D. Comparing L/D in the three mentioned cross sections it is obtained that L/D is the greatest in squircle then in ellipse and the least in circle. The results have applications in design of flying objects such as airplanes where many more seats can be arranged in ellipse and or squircle cross section compared to regular circular case.


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