An experimental and numerical study of vortex generators on the flow pattern and the aerodynamic coefficients

This study deals with the experimental and numerical investigation of the effect of vortex generators on the flow pattern on the upper surface of a model of an airliner wing as well as its aerodynamic coefficients. Wing section airfoil is NACA 65–210. The vortex generators used have zero and 15 degrees position angles to flow direction. The experimental tests include detection of flow patterns on the wing's upper surface using Taft, and measurement of lift and drag forces. Fluent software and Reynolds stress model have been used for the numerical analysis of the flow. The studies have been performed in the free stream velocity of 30 meters per second, which corresponds to 265,000 Reynolds and in the angle of attack of 2 -to 20 degrees. Experimental and numerical results show that adding vortex generators to the wing increases the maximum lift coefficient and exhaustion angle of attack and decreases the drag force. Also the maximum lift and minimum drag forces belong to the wing with vortex generators with the yawing angle of 15 degrees. At low angles of attack (before exhaustion) there was a good agreement between the numerical and experimental data, but at high angles of attack (after exhaustion and separation of the flow), due to the complexity of the separation problem, the fluent software is not sufficiently accurate.