FURI | Fall 2018

CFD Analysis of Changing Surface Roughness in Response to Flight Conditions

The motivation for this research is to use varying surface roughness to dynamically increase lift-coefficient at high angles of attack near stall, as well as increase the stall angle and reduce stall speed. The scope of this research will be to analyze through Computational Fluid Dynamics the viscous flow over an airfoil with a rough surface to determine the optimum placement of roughness device(s) and the degree to which they are deployed under different flight conditions. This research will provide data to inform the engineering of devices to increase an aircraft’s lift capability and the overall efficiency of the aircraft.