TSINGHUA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

ISSNll1007-0214ll19/21llpp94-99
Volume 14, Number S2, December 2009

Aerodynamics of a Multi-Element Airfoil near Ground

QIN Xuguo (வ༢‫**)ڳ‬, LIU Peiqing (ঞଇூ), QU Qiulin (௙ௌॿ)

School of Aeronautics Science and Technology, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China

Abstract: Two-dimensional wing sections were investigated numerically both in clean and high lift configura-
tions operating in ground effect. The compressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved by the finite-volume
method, and shear-stress transport k- turbulence model is used. The effects of flight height on the aero-
dynamics of the multi-element airfoils are found obviously different compared with clean airfoils. The results
indicate that, with a reduction in height, the lift increases for the multi-element airfoil, but decreases for the
clean airfoil, while the drag and nose down moment decrease for both airfoils. The cause of the reduction of
lift is that the losses of suction side of upper surface are more than the increases of pressure side of lower
surface. The separated region becomes larger as the height reduces.

Key words: ground effect; high lift configuration; numerical simulation

monly composed of leading-edge slats and trailing-

Introduction edge flaps to increase lift performance in takeoff and
landing[7]. The multi-element wing system with small
A wing operating in the proximity to the ground intro-
gaps complicates mesh generation and flow features.
duces different flow physics from that in free stream[1].
Flow is complicated due to boundary layer transition,
The effects of ground proximity become measurable at
flow separation, and interaction of wake of each ele-
a height above the ground of one wing-span and in-
ment and boundary layer[8]. Recently, efforts to vali-
crease in magnitude as the height above the ground
date and improve computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
decreases. The flight near ground is important for take-
have been promoted for high-lift systems[9]. There
off and landing of jet transport aircraft. For modern
have been a large number of researches in the field of
wing design of modern transport aircraft, multi- ele-
multi-element aerodynamics. From the review of re-
ment wing is often used to satisfy the need for a high-
cent turbulence models used for multi-element air-
lift system. Both theoretical and experimental investi-
foil[10,11], it can be found that early algebraic model and
gations indicate that ground proximity produces an
k- model have been proved to be incorrect in
increase in the lift-curve slope, a decrease in drag, and
multi-element simulation. The shear-stress transport
a reduction of nose-up pitching moment for most air-
(SST) k- model[12], developed since 1990s, has been
crafts in the clean configuration[2,3]. However, high-lift
proved to be more superior. Melvin and Martinelli[13]
configurations deviate from this trend, which depends
and Zhang and Zerihan[14] investigated inverted double
on the configuration of the airfoil[4,5].
element wing in ground effect which is used in race car
For modern wing design of modern transport aircraft,
to get downforce. Little information is placed in public
multi-element wing is often used to satisfy the need for
domain about a high-lift airfoil in ground effect which
a high-lift system[6]. The high-lift devices are com-
is used in the process of landing and takeoff of aircraft.
Received: 2009-05-08; revised: 2009-06-20 In this paper, two-dimensional airfoil sections, both
** To whom correspondence should be addressed. in clean and high lift configurations, are investigated
E-mail: qinxuguo@ase.buaa.edu.cn; Tel: 86-10-82315463
 QIN Xuguo (வ༢‫ )ڳ‬et al.ġAerodynamics of a Multi-Element Airfoil near Ground 95

numerically in ground effect. Compressible Navier- was set to zero on the airfoil surface. The ground was
Stokes equations, based on finite volume method, are set as a moving wall with the velocity same as free air
solved. SST k- two-equation turbulence model is to simulate the factual flight more accurately. A pres-
used to calculate the aerodynamic characteristics of the sure far-field boundary condition is used for the far
airfoils at various distances from ground and various field flow condition.
angles of attack. Numerical results are presented to
1.2 Turbulence modeling
show the effects of the ground on the aerodynamic
characteristics of the airfoil sections. The pressure dis- To close the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equa-
tributions on the airfoils are given to show why the tions, SST k- turbulence model was used in this study
aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil sections which can effectively blend the robust and accurate
change and the streamline shows the effects of the formulation of two turbulence models. The k- model
ground on the flow field. was solved in the near-wall region and the k- model
was solved in the far field. The k and  transport equa-
1 Numerical Method tions are:
1.1 Governing equations w w wu w ª wk º
(U k ) ( U kui ) W ij i  E
Z k  «( P V k Pt ) »,
wt wxi wx j wx j ¬« wx j ¼»
Based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equa-
w w J wu
tions, the governing equations can be given as: ( UZ )  ( UZui ) W ij i  EUZ 2 
Continuity equation, wt wxi Xt wx j
wU w w ª wZ º 1 wk wZ
 ( U ui ) 0 (1)
wt wxi «( P V Z Pt ) ) »  2(1  F1 ) UV Z 2 (7)
wx j ¬« wx j ¼» Z wx j wx j
Momentum equation,
The constants  of the model (including k, , , *,
w w wp wW ij
( U ui )  ( U ui u j )   (2) and ) are calculated from the constants 1 and 2 as
wt wx j wxi wx j
follows:
Energy equation, M F1M1  (1  F1 )M2 (8)
wª § 1 ·º w ª § 1 2 ·º The constants of set 1 (1) applied to the flow in the
« U ¨ h  ui2 ¸ »  « U u j ¨ h  2 ui ¸ »
wt ¬ © 2 ¹ ¼ wx j ¬ © ¹¼ boundary layer are:
wp w § wT ·
V k1 0.85, V Z1 0.5, E1 0.075, E
0.09,
 ¨¨ uiW ij  O ¸ (3)
wt wx j © wx j ¸¹ N 0.41, J 1 E1 / E
 V Z1N 2 / E
.
where W ij is the stress tensor and h is the total en- The constants of set 2 (2) applied to the flow out of
thalpy given by boundary layer are˖
§ wu wu · 2 wu
V k 2 1.0, V Z 2 0.856, E 2 0.0828,
W ij P ¨ i  j ¸  P l G ij (4) E
0.09, N 0.41, J 2 E 2 / E
 V Z 2N 2 / E
.
¨ wx ¸
© j wxi ¹ 3 wxl
The blending function F1 is defined as
h cpT (5)
F1 tanh(arg1 ) 4 (9)
Ideal gas state equation,
P U RT (6) ª § k 500X · 4 UV Z 2 k º
arg1min « max ¨¨ ; 2 ¸¸ ; 2 »
(10)
The finite volume method is used to solve the two- «¬ © 0.09Z y y Z ¹ CD kZ y »¼
dimensional unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier- § 1 wk wZ ·
CD kZ max ¨ 2 UV Z 2 ;1020 ¸ (11)
Stokes equations. The momentum equations are discre- ¨ Z wx j wx j ¸
© ¹
tized using second order upwind scheme options.
Viscous terms are discretized using central differences. where y is the distance to the solid surface. And the
Velocity and pressure are coupled and solved in all eddy viscosity is defined as
D1k
computations. The temporal integration is accom- Xt ; D1 0.31 ,
plished with one order implicit scheme. The velocity max(D1Z; : F2 )
 96
where : is the absolute value of the vorticity
: | wu / wy | and F2 is given by
F2 tanh(arg 22 ) (12)
§ 2 k 500X ·
arg 2 max ¨¨ ; 2 ¸¸ (13)
© 0.09Z y y Z ¹
2 Results and Discussion
2.1 Validation
It is necessary to ensure that the result of the flow cal-
culation can be relied on comparison to experimental
data. The experimental database for the flow around a
multi-element airfoil is a 3-element airfoil called
L1T2-configuration shown in Fig. 1[7].
Fig. 1 Grid for the calculation of the flow around L1T2
configuration
Pressure coefficient on the surface, total pressure
profiles of the boundary layers, the free wakes for a
selected angle of attack of =20.18°, and the  de-
pendency of the lift coefficient are provided. The flow
conditions are given with Ma=0.197 and Re
3.52×106. The used grid contained 267 000 structured
cells in 8 blocks so that each surface part is covered
within a C-type grid and another outer C-type grid is
surrounding the others. Figure 2 shows the computed
overall pressure distribution, in which X is the hori-
zontal coordinate. The results show good agreements
with experimental data. Only a few differences can be
found in the suction peak on the slat.
Fig. 2 Calculated pressure distributions compared
with experimental data
Tsinghua Science and Technology, December 2009, 14(S2): 94-99
A critical item for flow simulation around multi-
element airfoils can capture the mixing of the bound-
ary layers with the wakes of the preceding elements.
Therefore, the total pressure profiles are a good crite-
rion to compare the mixing behavior of the RANS-
simulation against experimental data. This is shown in
Fig. 3 for a station at the trailing edge of the flap. First,
it has to be stated, and the total pressure profiles near
the wall match the experiments very well. Also the
distance of the wakes of the preceding airfoil elements
agree closely to the experimental data. As expected the
boundary layers are thicker, the wakes are wider for
the fully turbulent calculations, and the wakes for these
calculations are slightly more far off the surface. It is
obvious that the total pressure peaks especially for the
slat/main wake interaction are not as pronounced as in
the experiments and the outer bound of the shear flow
region is smeared out, which is due to the reduced grid
resolution in this region. Another point of view is look-
ing at the dependencies of the aerodynamic coeffi-
cients from the angle of attack, which is shown in Fig.
4. It can be observed that at moderate angle of attack
the lift coefficients are slightly lower than the experi-
ment, but the error is lower than 5% at different angle
of attack.
Fig. 3 Calculated total pressure profiles compared
with experimental data
2.2 Results and analysis
A two-dimensional airfoil section is investigated both
in clean and high lift configurations, which has been
shown in Fig. 5, and the high lift airfoil is for landing
 QIN Xuguo (வ༢‫ )ڳ‬et al.ġAerodynamics of a Multi-Element Airfoil near Ground 97

The results show that for the clean airfoil at =6°, with
the decrease of distance between the airfoil and ground,
the lift and the nose down moment increase, and the
drag decreases.

Fig. 4 Calculated aerodynamic coefficients compared

with experimental data
setting. The flow conditions are given with Ma=0.168
and Re Ğ =1.31×107, which are based on the chord (a) CL
length of clean airfoil. The grid of multi-element airfoil
contains 572 100 structured cells at the lowest height,
and 677 100 cells at the highest height. The grid of
clean airfoil contains 70 920 cells at the lowest height,
and 81 390 cells at the highest height. The grids are
shown in Fig. 6. The flight height is h/c=0.15, 0.20,
0.40, 0.70, and 1.0, where c is the chord of the clean
airfoil and h is the height between the rear of the airfoil
and ground. For the clean airfoil, the incidence of the
airfoil is =3°, 6°, 9°, and 12°. For the clean airfoil,
=6°.
(b) CD

Fig. 5 Multi-element airfoil in ground effect sketch

(c) CM
Fig. 7 Aerodynamic coefficients versus ground dis-
(a) High-lift configuration section tance for the airfoils

For the high lift configuration, the results are in

(b) Clean configuration section
Fig. 6 Grid for the calculation of the flow around air-
foil sections
Figure 7 shows the effect of ground on the aerody-
namic characteristics, especially for high lift airfoil.
some contrast to the results for a clean airfoil. With the
decrease of distance between the airfoil and ground,
the lift, the nose down moment, and the drag all de-
crease. The losses of the lift are very considerable in
ground proximity. The effect becomes stronger as the
angle of attack increased. At  = 3°, the lift decreases
17.64% from h/c = 1.0 to h/c = 0.15, and at  = 12°, the
 98 Tsinghua Science and Technology, December 2009, 14(S2): 94-99

loss of lift grows to 20.79%. No positive ground effect

can be found for the high lift configuration.
Figure 8 shows pressure distributions of the clean
airfoil for different distances. With the reduction of
height, higher values of pressure coefficient are found
on the lower surface, and the pressure distribution on
the upper surface does not show obvious variation,
which results in higher lift force.

(a) =6°

Fig. 8 Pressure distributions of clean airfoil for dif-

ferent ground distances,  = 6°

Figure 9 shows pressure distribution of the high-lift

section for different distances and different angles of (b) =12°
attack. There is a well ordered shift of the pressure dis- Fig. 9 Pressure distributions of high-lift airfoil for
tribution curves on the upper surface to lower suction different ground distances

value with a decreasing ground distance. Slat, flap, and

vane show similar effects as the main wing. The suc-
tion side of the airfoil system is affected (suction losses)
more than the pressure side (pressure gains), especially
=3°
for higher angel attack. This is in contrast to the results
of the air-foil in clean configuration.
Figure 10 shows the streamline distributions at dif-
ferent heights and different angles of attack. It can be
found that the region of separated cove flow becomes =6°
smaller with the increase of the angle of attack. At
 = 3° and  = 6°, the flow on the upper surface of the
flap is the separated flow, and the separated region be-
comes larger as the height reduces. At  = 9°, the flow
on the upper surface of the flap becomes attached, and =9°
the confluent flow becomes stronger in the wake be-
hind the airfoil as the height reduces. At  = 12°, the
flow on the upper surface of the flap retains attached.
As the height reduces, two vortices can be found in the
wake of the airfoil because of the strong confluent flow =12°
from the gap and the wake of the main wing. The vor- (a) h/c = 1.0 (b) h/c = 0.15
tices become stronger as the height reduces so the di- Fig. 10 Streamline distributions at different heights
rection of the jet flow from the vane gap and the wake
 QIN Xuguo (வ༢‫ )ڳ‬et al.ġAerodynamics of a Multi-Element Airfoil near Ground 99

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aerodynamics changes for different airfoils. It depends
on the configuration of the airfoil.

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