Vortex generators project for an unmanned small airplane

Abstract

Since the Cold War period, turbine generators have proved to be an important alternative to the development of aerodynamic aircraft designs, and even so, there was little adherence to their use, among which we highlight, short takeoff and landing aircraft (STOL) and some models of military aircraft and commercial jet aircraft. In the USA and Brazil, in addition to other countries, they hold competitions to awaken technological innovation in the aeronautical field for engineering students: the SAE AeroDesign Competition (SAE - Society of Automotive Engineers). These contests allow teams from their countries to use points of difference in their design and, in some cases, to use small unmanned aircraft devices that have already been designed for huge aircraft, such as vortex generators. Therefore, we intend to adopt a Vortex Generator model for the Avoante Aeromec AeroDesign team airplane project (team from the Federal University of Ceara, Brazil - UFC), use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with turbulence modeling, as well as perform tests in a wind tunnel. Despite the problems found in comparing the results of the computational models with the prototype tests, it was possible to prove the efficiency of these vortex generators in the design of the team's airplane, observing the increase in the stall angle, reduction of the drag coefficient and increase of the coefficient lifting.