CBL - Campus del Baix Llobregat

Projecte llegit

Títol: Alas aerodinámicamente eficientes para diferentes regímenes de vuelo: efectos de compresibilidad

Estudiants que han llegit aquest projecte:

Director/a: GONZÁLEZ HORCAS, SERGIO

Departament: FIS

Títol: Alas aerodinámicamente eficientes para diferentes regímenes de vuelo: efectos de compresibilidad

Data inici oferta: 04-02-2025     Data finalització oferta: 04-10-2025


Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
    GR ENG SIST AEROESP
Tipus: Individual
 
Lloc de realització: EETAC
 
Paraules clau:
Aerodinámica, Perfiles alares, Compresibilidad, XFOIL, AeroSandbox
 
Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats:
This final degree project aims to analyze and design aerodynamically efficient wings for different flight regimes, with a special focus on the effects of flow compressibility and the distribution of aerodynamic loads.

The recent attention to commercial supersonic flights has revived the interest in this technology for civil applications of fixed-wing aircraft. However, as airspeed increases, air density also changes. This introduces compressibility effects that significantly affect the flow characteristics, such as shock waves and pressure variations along the wing. These effects become particularly significant as the aircraft approaches transonic speeds, requiring additional considerations compared to traditional subsonic aircraft design. The present work is based on fundamental aerodynamic principles, analyzing how these phenomena influence lift, drag, and pressure distribution on the wings. The study will use numerical methods (to be validated within the scope of this work) to evaluate different wing configurations, characterized by profile shape, inflow conditions, and angle of attack, with the objective of assessing their aerodynamic performance.

Several aircraft configurations will be selected, representative of currently employed popular models and supersonic designs under exploration. Their mutual comparison will help shed light on the different aerodynamic characteristics of both, establishing directions for their airfoil optimization in terms of performance increase and drag reduction. Additionally, a critical overview of the performance of available aerodynamic models for design purposes will be conducted. The ultimate goal is to identify the most efficient wing configurations for different flight regimes, providing a basis for selecting the best geometry in terms of aerodynamic behavior and resulting loading.
 
Overview (resum en anglès):
The aerodynamic analysis of airfoils using low- to medium-fidelity numerical tools is widely employed during the preliminary stages of aircraft design, as it provides reliable performance estimates at a low computational cost and with turnaround times suitable for iterative design processes. Although high-fidelity methods can achieve greater accuracy, their computational expense limits their applicability during the early stages of the design process. However, the accuracy of low- and medium-fidelity methodologies decreases as the Mach number increases and compressibility effects become significant. The objective of this Bachelor's Thesis is to analyze the aerodynamic behavior of different airfoils under various flight regimes and to evaluate the capability of these numerical tools to reproduce compressibility-related phenomena.
To this end, a panel method coupled with a viscous--inviscid interaction model and an aerodynamic analysis and optimization framework are employed as analysis tools, using a conventional airfoil (NACA 2412) and a supercritical airfoil (NASA SC(2)-0714) as representative case studies. The methodology combines the validation of both tools against experimental data with an assessment of the influence of the Mach number on the lift and drag coefficients. Furthermore, the main compressibility correction methods implemented in these tools are examined, together with the applicability of the underlying models under conditions approaching the transonic regime.
The results show that these tools accurately reproduce the aerodynamic behavior in the subsonic regime and successfully capture the main trends as compressibility effects become increasingly relevant. Nevertheless, they also reveal the inherent limitations of low- to medium-fidelity models in representing characteristic transonic phenomena, such as shock-wave formation and the associated wave drag rise. Finally, it is concluded that these methodologies provide an effective tool for comparative studies and preliminary design phases, provided that their results are interpreted within their range of validity and with due consideration of the physical assumptions on which they are based.

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