Wing tip sensitivity on arch-shaped wings in ground-effect (Not Available: Assigned)

 

This semester project will be part of a larger research project that aims at understanding ground effect on arch-shaped finite wing, a wing configuration that is often observed on sea-birds when they glide near the water surface, see Fig 1. 

 

Fig 1: Albatross gliding near the water surface displaying an arched-shaped wing configuration

 

The current phase of the project review various wing configurations with CFD, using OpenFoam as the main solver. The geometries are simply trimmed at their maximum width and display a thick tip with the airfoil profile, see Fig 2.

 

Fig 2: one of the current studied geometry, with the tip on the RHS of the geometry.

 

Such tip generates two counter-rotating vortices, the main wing tip and a secondary upper vortex. The objective of this semester project is to create a thin tip that will only shed the main tip vortex and study the downstream effect of such a change.