Volume-4, Issue-4, April-2015 • ISSN No 2277 - 8160

Commerce
Research Paper Engineering
An Analysis of Pressure Difference on Airfoil by Changing
Angle of Attack and Gurney Flap Height

Hardik S. Patel Dept. of mechanical engineering LDRP-ITR, KSV Gandhinagar, India

ABSTRACT The present study comprises steady state, two-dimensional computational investigations performed on NACA0012
(National advisory committee for aeronautics) airfoil to analyse the effect of pressure difference on airfoil with GF (gurney
flap) at various angle of attack using viscous-laminar model of FLUENT & using CAD preparation of two dimensional
NACA 0012 airfoil. Airfoil with GF is analysed for four different heights from 0%to 6% of the chord length and three angles of attack from 0∘ to
16∘. Static pressure distribution on the airfoil surface is present. From computational investigation, it is recommended that Gurney flaps with a
approximately height of 4% chord to be installed perpendicular to chord and on trailing edge as possible to obtain maximum pressure.

KEYWORDS : NACA 0012 airfoil; Gurney flap; CFD analysis; Attack angle; Pressure
difference
I. Introduction II. Theoretical background
The aerodynamic characteristics of airfoils at a small chord Reynolds It was first used by Dan Gurney on the top trailing edge of the rear
number (less than 5x105) are becoming increasingly important from wing on his race car to provide extra rear end down force with min-
both fundamental and industrial point of view, due to recent devel- imal aerodynamics disturbance [1]. Liebeck [2] conducted first wind
opments in small wind turbines, small unmanned aerial vehicles, tunnel experiments on GF. An excellent review of GF research for air-
micro-air vehicles, as well as researches on bird/insect flying aerody- craft wings and other aerodynamics applications was presented by
namics. It is usually not enough to optimize one single airfoil shape. Wang et al. [3]. Jang et al. [4], Yoo [5], and Li et al. [6] have verified
The need arises for conformal changes of the airfoil to achieve best the lift enhancement of GF in their experiments. Neuhart and Pender-
performance in both conditions. This is where high lift devices enter graft [7] visualized recirculation zones behind GF in their water tunnel
the design space. Therefore, study and analysis of these devices play experiments and also recommended to keep the GF height less than
a dominant role in design. The high-lift systems have been studied for 2% of the chord length to reduce drag penalty which was also veri-
many years since these systems play a major role in economic success fied by Myose et al. [8]. Experiments on GF for GU25-5(11)-8 airfoil by
of an aircraft. An effective high-lift system allows lower take-off and Galbraith [9] concluded that GF should be mounted at distance 𝑆 <
landing speed, greater payload capacity of given wing and longer 10% to prevent major performance degradation as verified by Li et
range for a given gross weight. So, high-lift aerodynamics continues al. [10] for NACA 0012 airfoil. Brown and Filippone [11] conducted ex-
playing an important role in the design of a new aircraft. Hence, there periments at Reynolds number ranging from Re = 42000 to 1.6 × 105.
is a continuous need for improving the maximum lift. Their analysis also shows that the optimum height of GFs is always
below the boundary layer thickness at the trailing edge. Lianbing
CFD study of airfoils to predict its visualisation and surveillance of et al.[12] have investigated performance of wind turbine NACA0012
flow field pattern around the body. Wing with flap is usually known as airfoil using FLUENT programs. Spalart Allmaras turbulence model
high lift device. CFD facilitates to envisage the behavior of geometry to numerical solutions was used by Lianbing et al. of airfoil at 3×106
subjected to any sort of fluid flow field. This fast progression of com- Reynolds number for lift and drag performance and stall angle. Troo-
putational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been driven by the necessity for lin et al.[13], added Gurney flap with NACA 0015 airfoil and they nu-
more rapid and more exact methods for the calculations of flow fields merically investigated performance of this new design. They saw that
around very complicated structural configurations of practical atten- lift coefficient increased but drag coefficient was not change so this
tion. CFD has been demonstrated as an economically viable method design was useful.
of preference in the field of numerous aerospace, automotive and
industrial components and processes in which a major role is played III. Computational method
by fluid or gas flows. In the fluid dynamics, for modelling flow in or After The well documented airfoil, NACA 0012, is utilized in this study.
around objects, many commercial and open source CFD packages The free stream temperature is 288.16 K, which is the same as the
are available. The computer simulations can model features and de- ambient temperature. The density of the air at the given tempera-
tails that are tough, expensive or impossible to measure or visualize ture is ρ = 1.225 kg/m^3 and the dynamic viscosity is 1.7894×10-5
experimentally. it is very important to understand the characteristics kg/ms. Reynolds number for the simulations is Re=3x10^5, flow for
of the wing having different flap angles. This study does not provide this Reynolds number can be labeled as incompressible[14]. This is
any experimental data for the flow over the flapped airfoil. Selecting a a supposition close to reality and there is no necessity to resolve the
proper turbulence model, the structure and use of a model to forecast energy equation[15]. The flow is considered to be viscid, incompressi-
the effects of turbulence, is a crucial undertaking to study any sorts of ble and steady, and the uniform flow velocity is taken as 43.82 m/s. A
fluid flow. It should model the whole flow condition very accurately segregated, implicit solver, ANSYS Fluent 14.5, is utilized to simulate
to get satisfactory results. Selection of wrong turbulence model often the problem. The airfoil profile is engendered in the Design Mod-
results worthless outcomes, as wrong model may not represent the eler (see Fig. 1) and using CAD software Creo (see Fig.2), importing
actual physics of the flow. Turbulent flow dictates most flows of prag- co-ordinates from airfoil tools[16] (see Fig.3) , boundary conditions,
matic engineering interest. meshes are created in the pre-processor FLUENT[17] . The resolution
and density of the mesh is greater in regions where superior compu-
Main goal of this study is to do parametric analysis of flow over (Na- tational accuracy is needed, such as the near wall region of the airfoil
tional Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) NACA 0012 airfoil with (see Fig.5).
plain flap at various angles of attack and flap heights. The measure-
ments were carried out for the Reynolds number of 3x10^5 and at-
tack angle of 0 to 16 with 2 intervals and flap height of 0 to 6%c with
4 intervals to investigate the effects of these parameters on aerody-
namic characteristics of NACA0012 airfoil. Hence the present investi-
gation is undertaken, computationally to see the influence of these
parameters on the airfoil performance by using CFD software.

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Volume-4, Issue-4, April-2015 • ISSN No 2277 - 8160

Fig. 4. Boundary domain

Fig. 1. Airfoil profile generated in design modeller

Fig. 5. Highly dense mesh near airfoil

Fig. 2. 2-D airfoil sketch in Creo

Fig. 6. C-type grid domain

IV. Result and discussion

Pressure based solver utilizing viscous-laminar model in Fluent facili-
Fig. 3. Plotted Co-ordinates of NACA 0012[16] tates mimicking compressible flow over the body. Flow having Mach
number less than 0.3 is considered incompressible. Angle of attack
As the first step of accomplishing a CFD simulation the influence of values are tried between 0 and 16 degrees in steps of 8 degree for 0
the mesh size on the solution results should be investigated. Mostly, to 6% gurney flap in step of 2 degrees. The static pressure for the gur-
more accurate numerical solution is obtained as more nodes are used, ney flap cases for AOA=0 degree is given in Figure 7 to 10 for compar-
then again using added nodes also escalates the requisite computer ison with the clean airfoil.
memory and computational time. The determination of the proper
number of nodes can be done by increasing the number of nodes un-
til the mesh is satisfactorily fine so that further refinement does not
change the results[14]. C-type grid topology is applied to establish
a grid independent solution. As shown in Fig.6 number of nodes are
43000 and type of cells are quadrilateral. This domain represents a
free stream region around a NACA 0012 airfoil (see Fig.4). In the work-
ing domain, four boundaries have been specified. Inlet is considered
as velocity inlet and Outlet is considered as pressure outlet while wall
and Airfoil are considered as no-slip wall.

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 Volume-4, Issue-4, April-2015 • ISSN No 2277 - 8160

Here positive (+) sign in static pressure shows negative pressure on

suction (upper) side & negative (-) sign shows positive pressure on
pressure (lower) side of an airfoil. As it can be seen from the figures,
pressure distribution is changing seriously near the gurney flap region
around the trailing edge which creates lift force even in zero angle
of attack. After the gurney flap, it is expected that vorticities should
occur according to the literature [2]. The vorticities are clearly seen
behind the flap in the trailing edge in figures. The pressure difference
can be seen in figures. Especially for the case of gurney flap with 2%c
length, pressure difference is much more than the other cases. And
the vorticities are more distinct which causes more positive pressure.
However the positive pressure increases with the angle of attack. Sim-
ulations for various angles of attack are done in order to be able to
observe the results for the different flap heights. As shown in figures
7 & 11, it could be observed that at low angles of attack, the pressure
difference increases linearly with angle of attack. Flow is attached to
the airfoil throughout this regime. Behavior of static pressure of an
Fig. 7. Static pressure vs. position in case of 0 AOA & airfoil with 16 AOA & 0%c flap height is seen approximately similar to
0%c of flap height that of figure 11. At AOA=0, the pressure variation over the suction
and pressure side of the airfoil showed a symmetric distribution, as
expected, shown in figure 7. At an angle of attack of roughly around
16 degree, the flow on the upper surface of the airfoil begins to sep-
arate and a condition known as stall begins to develop. The actual
airfoil has laminar flow over the forward half. In order to get more ac-
curate results, the computational domain could be splitted into two
different domains to run mixed laminar and turbulent flow. The dis-
advantages of this approach are that the accuracy of simulations de-
pends on the ability to accurately guess the transition location, and a
new grid must be generated if the transition point has to change[19]
[20]. The pressure on the lower surface of the airfoil is greater than
that of the incoming flow stream and as a result it effectively “push-
es” the airfoil upward, normal to the incoming flow stream. On the
other hand, the components of the pressure distribution parallel to
the incoming flow stream tend to slow the velocity of the incoming
flow relative to the airfoil, as do the viscous stresses. The trailing edge
stagnation point moves slightly forward on the airfoil at low angles
of attack and it jumps rapidly to leading edge at stall angle. A stagna-
Fig. 8. Static pressure vs. position in case of 0 AOA & tion point is a point in a flow field where the local velocity of the fluid
2%c of flap height is zero. The upper surface of the airfoil experiences a higher velocity
compared to the lower surface. That was expected from the pressure
distribution. As the angle of attack increases the upper surface veloci-
ty is much higher than the velocity of the lower surface.

Pressure values increased with attack angle as smaller Reynolds num-

ber results. The separation and reattachments couldn’t determine
accurately from the pressure distribution due to the fact that the
pressure tappings cannot be completely flush along the pressure and
suction side of the airfoil. As the flap height increases pressure distri-
bution over the airfoil increases thus the lift force generated by the
airfoil also increases. Therefore, by increasing height of the flap, even
without changing the AOA of the airfoil, we can increase the lift over
an airfoil.

Fig. 9. Static pressure vs. position in case of 0 AOA &

4%c of flap height

Fig. 11. Static pressure vs. position in case of 8 AOA &

Fig. 10. Static pressure vs. position in case of 0 AOA & 0%c of flap height
6%c of flap height
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Volume-4, Issue-4, April-2015 • ISSN No 2277 - 8160

V. CONCLUSION
Present study divulges behavior of NACA 0012 airfoil at different flap
heights and angle of attacks. Pressure distribution curves show that
Gurney flap increases upper surface suction and lower surface high
pressure which results in lift enhancement and hence their aerody-
namic performance can be significantly improved. Gurney flap turn
the flow on a blade towards the direction of the suction surface. The
pressure coefficient of the suction side of the airfoil initially increased
near the leading edge and then showed a monotonously decrease up
to trailing edge for all angle of attack. A symmetric pressure distribu-
tion was obtained along the suction and pressure side of the airfoil at
zero attack angles. Maximum pressure is obtained at 4%c even when
angle of attack is zero. Pressure difference is higher when angle of
attack is 8. The Gurney flap effect is interpreted as a special camber
effect or effective camber effect. Turbulence modeling is also very
important for the accuracy of the results. This comprehensive study
will facilitate efficient design of wing sections of aircrafts and an op-
timized flight.

Acknowledgment
Hardik S Patel is supported by department of Mechanical Engineering.
The author would like to thank K. H. Bhavsar and A. R. Patel of LDRP-
ITR for their support and discussions. Technical assistance was also
given by them. Assistance appreciated, in addition to all staff at the
University of Kadi Sarva Viswavidyalaya

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