City University of London

School of Mathematics, Computer Science & Engineering

AEM301_PRD1_A_2016-17
Assignment: 2D Steady, Incompressible Flow Around a NACA-0012 Aerofoil

The purpose of the course work is to produce numerical predictions of the flow
around a NACA0012 Aerofoil at 5 angle of attack. To this end, you will be asked to
make use of the commercial CFD package ANSYS-Fluent using the following
hypotheses: the incoming flow is considered to be incompressible, the kinematic
viscosity is fixed to the value = 1 6 ) /, the aerofoil chord length is =
10 , and the magnitude of the free-stream fluid velocity is / = 50 /.

Figure 1: schematic diagram of the setup and the grid

A body fitted, C-grid type mesh will be employed for predicting the flow around the
selected aerofoil as shown in fig 1. The external surface that bounds the aerofoil
contains both the velocity inlet and outflow boundary conditions while the foil surface
is assigned as a stationary (no-slip) wall.

A detailed description of the problem setup, solution procedure and the post-
processing of the results will be explained to you in a dedicated tutorial session.
Based on the provided information, you will have to perform simulations on two
different grids (naca0012-coarse.cas & naca0012-refine.cas) that will be made
available to the students. You will be asked to submit your case files as well as a
single PDF file, which contains the results and a discussion covering the points that
will be explained in the following two sections. The first one concerns a guided mesh
selection process, while the second is a critical evaluation of the performance of
various turbulence closure models.

Evaluation of the results and analysis of mesh sensitivity

The first set of simulations will be carried out using a 4-equations transition SST
model for both the coarse and the fine grids. The transition SST Menters [1] model is
based on the coupling of the SST k transport equations with two other transport
equations, one for the intermittency () and one for the transition onset criteria, in
terms of momentum-thickness Reynolds number Re.
1- Explain what set of equations needs to be solved (i.e., what equations are
discretized and solved by the commercial software Fluent).

2- Explain what is a turbulence closure; what is an eddy viscosity model and how the
k equations are used to determine the value of the eddy viscosity [2].

3- Check the quality of the mesh, report the skewness, orthogonality, and aspect ratio
and briefly explain their meaning. Also identify whether it is a structured mesh or
unstructured.

4- Discuss the grid spacing requirement in the vicinity of the aerofoil surface when a
turbulent boundary layer develops above it. Provide the distribution of grid
spacing in wall units along the surface of the aerofoil when the finest mesh is
considered.

5- Compare the results for the integral values of lift and drag coefficients for both
grids. Also, compare the pressure coefficient and shear-stress distributions on the
surface of the aerofoil (for both suction and pressure sides). Identify the position
of separation and reattachment points and report their values for each case.

6- Report the iso-velocity contours (only for the fine grid, both components) and
provide a qualitative description of dynamics of the flow around the aerofoil. Also
explain, how the flow features would be changed if you increase/decrease the
angle of attack to 5.

Effect of Turbulence Models (only for the fine grid)

The second set of simulations will be carried out using only the finest grid. The
purpose concerns the evaluation of the performance of different turbulence closures
versus a set of benchmark data obtained via Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) [3].

7- Explain what is a DNS and the difference between simulation and modeling when
dealing with turbulent flows.

8- For the simulation of the flow around the given aerofoil at 0o angle of attack, we
will use only the finest grid and consider the performances of the following
turbulence models [2]:
a) Spalart-Allmaras
b) Realizable K-
c) SST K-
d) K-Kl- .
Explain briefly what is the difference between the mentioned closures (i.e, a, b, c and
d).

9- Answer questions 5 and 6 in terms of the results obtained using the four models
listed above.
10- Provide a detailed discussion on the performance of the proposed closures by
comparing your results with the predictions of direct numerical simulation for
which the pressure coefficient profile is contained in the file cp_dns.dat, and the
values of lift and drag coefficients, separation and reattachment locations are
listed in the table below:

CD CL xseparation/c xreattachment/c
0.569 0.0291 0.0645 0.566

1. Menter, F. R. (1993), "Zonal Two Equation k- Turbulence Models for Aerodynamic

Flows", AIAA Paper 93-2906.

2. Wilcox D.C. Turbulence Modelling for CFD. DCW Industries Inc., 1993

3. Pope, S.B. Turbulent Flows. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Maximum mark achievable for each question

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10
5/100 5/100 5/100 5/100 15/100 15/100 5/100 5/100 25/100 15/100