Numerical Investigation of Aerodynamic Characteristics of NACA 4312 Airfoil with Gurney Flap

Subah Mubassira; Farhana Islam  Muna; Mohammad Ilias Inam

doi:10.38032/jea.2021.02.001

Authors

Subah Mubassira Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology, Dhaka-1000, BANGLADESH
Farhana Islam Muna Department of Mechanical Engineering, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, Khulna-9203, BANGLADESH
Mohammad Ilias Inam Department of Mechanical Engineering, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, Khulna-9203, BANGLADESH

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.38032/jea.2021.02.001

Keywords:

Airfoil, Gurney flap, Pressure Coefficient, Lift Coefficient, Drag Coefficient

Abstract

This paper presents a two-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis on the effect of gurney flap on a NACA 4312 airfoil in a subsonic flow. These numerical simulations were conducted for flap heights 1.5%, 1.75%, 2% and 3% of chord length at fixed Reynold Number, Re (5×10⁵) for different angle of attack (0^o ~16^o). ANSYS Fluent commercial software was used to conduct these simulations. The flow was considered as incompressible and K-omega Shear Stress Transport (SST) model was selected. The numerical results demonstrate that lift coefficient increase up to around 12^o AoA (angle of attack) for NACA 4312 with and without gurney flap. For every AoA lift coefficient and drag coefficient presented proportionate behavior with flap height. However, lift co-efficient was decreased after around angle of attack due to flow separation. Maximum lift to drag ratio was found at around 4^o AoA for every flap length and airfoil with flap of 1.5%C (chord length) had shown the most optimized aerodynamic performance through the analysis. This study concluded that airfoil with gurney flap displayed enhanced aerodynamic performance than the airfoil without gurney flap due to the delay in flow separation.

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