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Computational Investigations of Surface-Normal Pneumatic Active Aerodynamic Load Control for Lift Enhancement and Separation Mitigation in High-Lift Systems

AMS Seminar Series

Speaker: Sheida Hosseini, Computational Aerosciences Branch, NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division

Presentation

Seminar Slide Deck (PDF-8.7MB)

Abstract

The design of high-lift systems for civil transport airplanes has remained a challenging task in industry to balance performance, safety, and cost. One of the main focus areas in airplane high-lift design is the maximum lift coefficient in the takeoff and landing configurations. A second area of focus, specifically for twin-engine configurations, is the lift-to-drag ratio for the airplane in the takeoff configuration to comply with engine-out performance requirements. A third one is the lift coefficient at the angle of attack dictated by the tail ground clearance angle. In the last few decades, there have been major improvements towards designing effective multi-element high-lift systems with the goal of achieving a certain high-lift performance using simpler systems e.g., reduced number of flap elements, fixed flap hinge instead of linkage or track systems. However, this has left little room for further performance improvements and/or performance changes spurred by airplane design or operational changes.

In this talk we propose to use surface-normal pneumatic Active Flow Control—so-called microjets—near the flap trailing edge to control high-lift performance. We present various computational microjet characteristic investigations in a building block approach starting on a two-dimensional airfoil and concluding on a three-dimensional airplane wing/body configuration. These sensitivity studies confirm that small trailing edge microjets can effectively control the aerodynamic performance characteristics of multi-element high-lift systems such as lift enhancement and reduction, separation mitigation, and possible pressure drag reduction.

Biography

Photo of Sheida Hosseini
Sheida Hosseini is a NASA Pathways student in the Computational Aerosciences Branch of the Advanced Supercomputing Division at NASA's Ames Research Center. Sheida recently received her Ph.D. degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of California Davis, where she worked with Professor Case van Dam. Her dissertation focused on Active Flow Control applications on airplane high-lift systems. Throughout her academic studies, Sheida was involved with aircraft technology studies at the Boeing Company in areas of active flow control, compact nacelles, riblets, and buffet prediction.