Influence of the curved ground surface on the lift of flat plate airfoil

Shishi Chen*, Fenfen Xiong, Vladimir A. Frolov, Keyong Li

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

At present, only the flat ground surface problem is investigated in most studies on ground effect, which is not effective for practical applications due to the universal existence of curved ground surface. In this paper, the lift calculation of a two-dimensional flat plate airfoil placed near a curved ground surface is investigated. In order to calculate the complex velocity in the flow field, the complex variable function theory is employed. The conformal mapping method is applied to transform the flat plate airfoil to a cylinder in the uniform flow. Moreover, the discrete vortices method is modified to convert the curved ground surface to a series of discrete boundary elements. Two kinds of curved ground surfaces are considered: semicylindrical hollows and semicylindrical hills. It is shown that the lift fluctuation of flat plate airfoil located near a hollow or a hill is considerably serious, which should be considered during the design of flight vehicles flying near the ground surface.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Pages261-266
Number of pages6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2012
Event2012 3rd International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, ICMAE 2012 - Paris, France
Duration: 7 Jul 20128 Jul 2012

Publication series

NameApplied Mechanics and Materials
Volume232
ISSN (Print)1660-9336
ISSN (Electronic)1662-7482

Conference

Conference2012 3rd International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, ICMAE 2012
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityParis
Period7/07/128/07/12

Keywords

  • Complex variable function
  • Conformal mapping
  • Curved ground surface
  • Discrete vortices
  • Ground effect

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