Pre- and post-stall characteristics of a very light aircraft's wing for different design parameters

Abstract

The impact of taper ratio, dihedral angle and wing tip shape on the aerodynamics of a very light aircraft's wing has been investigated by performing URANS simulations at Reynolds number of 5 × 106 for pre- and post-stall conditions. SD 7062 airfoil is selected for the cross-section of the wing geometries investigated. The mean aerodynamic coefficients are found to be invariant to these wing design parameters investigated at low angles of attack. On the other hand, reducing the taper ratio from 1 to 0.5 yields an in-crease in the stall angle of attack and the maximum lift coefficient. The increase of the dihedral angle from 0° to 5° does not lead to any change in the stall angle, however it results a slightly higher maximum lift coefficient with smoother stall behaviour. As evident in the mean surface streamlines, the stall cell formation is observed just above the stall angle for all three wing geometries investigated. The stall cell characteristics with respect to different finite wing design variables and angles of attack are represented and their effects on the sectional lift distributions and total aerodynamic coefficients are discussed.