Law of incipient separation for turbulent flows over airfoils as inferred by Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes

Abstract

Lu, Aithal, and Ferrante [“Law of incipient separation over curved ramps as inferred by Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes,” AIAA J. 59, 196–214 (2021)] discovered a law that predicts the incipience of flow separation over curved ramps by knowing only a few geometrical parameters of the ramp and the Reynolds number of the flow. In that spirit, we have searched for a similar law for airfoils by performing simulations of incompressible turbulent flows over 32 NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) airfoils using Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations. First, we have carried out verification and validation of RANS against the experimental measurements by A. J. Wadcock (“Investigation of low-speed turbulent separated flow around airfoils,” NASA Contractor Report No. 177450, 1987), which show the accuracy of the RANS prediction at small angles of attack when flow separation begins to occur on the upper side of the airfoil. Then, we have investigated the effects of the angle of attack, airfoil thickness, and camber on the incipience of flow separation for the Reynolds number based on airfoil chord [Formula: see text]. From the analysis of the RANS results, we have determined a law for predicting the incipience of turbulent flow separation over airfoils that relies only on airfoil's newly defined characteristic slope, thickness, camber, and Rec.