Investigation of Passive Flow Control Analysis and Aerodynamic Shape Optimization via CFD Simulation

This study aims to investigate the influence of passive control applications by employing aerodynamic shape optimization. Hence, the study, which is rare in the literature, presents flow control analyses with vortex generators (VG) and aerodynamic shape optimization. In this study, Eppler 193 airfoil was selected to perform aerodynamic analysis using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method for a wing with and without VGs. The validation study was carried out by comparing it with an experimental study reported in the literature. The results showed that CFD solutions were in good agreement with experimental results. Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) was used to find optimal design parameters of VGs. The length and height of VG, its position concerning the leading edge, its positioning angle, and spacing between VGs were determined as design parameters, while drag (CD) and lift (CL) coefficients were selected output parameters. The results showed that the application of VG at wake region gained momentum and provided reattached flow on the upper surface of the wing. Eventually, the optimization results showed that the CL/CD ratio improved to about 6.07% compared to the wing with baseline VG geometry. It was concluded that total improvement was obtained by about 17.11% when comparing wing without VG (baseline wing geometry).