Aircraft Aerodynamics and Performance 2

Ghassan Eissa
Boundary Layer:
As a fluid moves past an object or vice versa, the molecules nearest to the surface of the
object sticks on the surface. Now this in turn slows down the molecules just above them in
their collisions with the molecules stuck to the surface. This in turn slows down the flow just
above them. This chain goes on till finally the molecules are not affected by the object
surface. Hence this creates a thin layer of fluid near the surface in which the velocity
changes from zero at the surface to free stream velocity at some point away from it, This
thin layer is technically termed as a boundary layer. A boundary layer is basically the result
of friction between a solid object and a fluid.

Laminar and Turbulent flow:

The ratio of Inertia forces to the viscous forces determines whether a flow is laminar or
turbulent. This ratio is a non-dimensional number and is known as Reynold’s number. It is
experimentally established that flows below Reynolds’s number of 2000 are laminar and
those above 4000 are turbulent in nature.At small values of Re above 2000 the flow exhibits
small fluctuations. In laminar flow the motion of the particles of fluid is very orderly with all
particles moving in straight lines parallel to the solid surface. Turbulent flow is characterised
by its unorganised pattern and the presence of swirls also known as eddies.

These flows play a very important role in aerodynamics of the wing. For reduced drag it is
very important to have turbulent flow as far away from the wing as possible. It is ideal to
have a large portion of the wing under laminar flow, as the turbulent flow would not only
destabilize the aircraft but would also affect the aircraft performance, as we notice a similar
situation in times of turbulence.
3000 element mesh:

12000 element mesh:

Increasing the number of cells near the wall:

We would want more cells near the wall as the flow is most responsive near the wall, so
having more number of cells would increase the accuracy o f our calculations and we would
be able to notice the more minor changes happening over the short span rather than
missing out on them having the regular number of cells.
12000 cells Velocity Vector:

3000 cell Velocity Vector:

Skin fraction Variation Across 3000 & 12000 cell mesh
Boundary layer is present at the surface of the plate and the boundary layer is responsible
for a viscous sort of an effect, An effect which in turn slows down layers of the fluid
exponentially until the place where the boundary layer and flow velocity equate after which
the flow Is hardly affected by the skin fraction.
Midpoint and Outlet velocity across 3000 cell mesh
Midpoint and Outlet velocity across 12000 cell mesh

The graphs do not diverge as we can see the from the above graphs.

Main Assumptions:
The main assumption would be that of the fluid being a ideal fluid. In real life situations the
assumption of a real fluid cannot be true as no fluid exists without friction, all fluids have a
certain amount of viscosity which in turn affects the pressure forces.