Airflow Around a NACA 0008 Airfoil, CFD Approach

Overview of Airflow Around a NACA 0008 Airfoil CFD Simulation

Project Description

Using ANSYS Fluent to examine airflow behaviour, pressure distribution, and drag and lift forces, this project mimics the airflow around a NACA 0008 aerofoil.  Important geometric variables are the chord line, angle of attack, leading edge, and trailing edge.  With the chord length and aerofoil width both 1 unit, the angle of attack is fixed at 16 degrees.
 The velocity of the input air flow is 20.78736 m/s.  Using the chord length altered by the sine and cosine of the 16-degree angle, respectively, together with the cross-sectional width, the drag and lift forces are computed.

Geometry & Mesh

Design Modeller builds the 2D geometry by importing point coordinates of the aerofoil wall.  Drawn to standard criteria, the model has a far-field border for airflow study.  Using ANSYS Meshing, which has an unstructured mesh of 296,533 components, meshing is done.

Methodology

Ignoring gravitational influences, the simulation presumes a steady flow model and a pressure-based solver.  Turbulence modelling employs the k-epsilon RNG improved wall treatment approach.

Results

Apart from 2D pathlines, the simulation offers 2D contours of pressure, velocity, and turbulent kinetic energy.  It also computes the forces and coefficients of drag and lift, hence providing information on the aerodynamic performance of the aerofoil.