Computational Fluid Dynamics 1

2D ANALYSIS OF NACA-2406 AIRFOIL BY ANSYS AND XFOIL

Prabowo Galih MAHANENDRA 1, Mohamed Salem ELMNEFI 2

Student, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, University of Turkish Aeronautical Association, Etimesgut, Ankara,
Turkey 1
Assistant Professor, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, University of Turkish Aeronautical Association,
Etimesgut, Ankara, Turkey 2

Abstract: Analyze the behavior of the turbulent airfoil flow of the lift coefficient and drag coefficient values, velocity
magnitude, static pressure, and turbulent viscosity on the surface of the airfoil with respect to the angle of attack, free
stream velocity, and altitude is the scope of this study. Lift and drag coefficient values will be calculated for 1.4 × 106
Reynolds number. The airfoil that is selected it is NACA-2406 and will be analyzed with ANSYS. The geometry of the
airfoil is created by using JAVAFOIL or can be find out in the website http://airfoiltools.com/ .This geometry will be
imported into SOLIDWORKS and then CFD analysis is carried out using FLUENT at angle of attack 6 degrees. The
results of ANSYS analysis will be compared with XFOIL’s results.
Keywords: Airfoil, lift coefficient, drag coefficient, angle of attack, computational fluid dynamics
I. INTRODUCTION
Computational Fluid Dynamics or CFD is the science of predicting fluid flow, chemical reactions, heat transfer, mass
transfer, etc. acting on them by solving mathematical equations. It is based on Navier-Stoke equations that describe how
velocity, pressure, density, temperature of moving fluids are related. The main focus is the use of computers and data
modeling in order to simulate and analyze how a fluid flows with respect to a surface. In real world application, analysis
of air flow for an aerodynamics aircraft design is included.
A two dimensional cross section shape of a wing which has purpose of generate lift and minimize drag is called an airfoil
can be analyzed as well with one of available software, ANSYS (FLUENT). The airfoil which is placed in an airstream
will produce a useful aerodynamic force. The normal force upwards or lift is produced due to the velocity above the
surface is increased so then the pressure is decreased and vice versa. The role of angle of attack is critical for producing
lift and drag. To produce high lift and low drag, the angle of attack needs to be small and vice versa. At case when the
airfoil is symmetric, when the angle of attack is zero, the lift is zero as well, and the drag will be very small, but very
small is infinitely greater than zero. But many airfoils with camber have positive lift at zero angle of attack.
There are three most interesting groups of NACA airfoils, four digits NACA airfoils, five digits NACA airfoils, and 6
series NACA airfoils. The simplest NACA airfoils generate is four digits NACA airfoils. The camber is made up of the
parabolas, one generates camber geometry from leading edge to maximum camber, and another one produces the camber
shape from maximum camber to the trailing edge. In four digits NACA, the first digit indicates the maximum camber in
a percentage chord. The second one indicates the position of the maximum camber in tenths of a chord length. The last
two digits indicate the maximum thickness to chord ratio.
2 Computational Fluid Dynamics

II. GEOMETRY AND MATERIAL PROPERTIES

For the flow analysis of 2 dimension airfoil mesh, the geometry is created by JAVAFOIL or can be taken from
http://airfoiltools.com/ with 101 number of points. It is shown as the figure below.

Figure 1. Airfoil’s geometry by JAVAFOIL

By this using this data, the data will be written in txt file and imported to the SOLIDWORKS to create the airfoil’s shape
and fluid volume. It will be shown as the attachment figure below.

Figure 2. Airfoil's shape with fluid volume by SOLIDWORKS

Computational Fluid Dynamics 3

The boundary domain or fluid volume that is made is C style domain, which is the combination of the rectangle and half
circle (arc). The boundary condition will be the inlet from the left, upper, and down surface (side), and the outlet from
the right surface (side). Inside the boundary, it will be split into 4 sub domains, which consists 2 rectangles and 2 quarter
circles. Split is done due to for helping in meshing step. This shape will be imported in ANSYS to do analysis.
Before making analysis, meshing is the next step after making a geometry. Meshing is defined as the process of dividing
the whole component into a number of elements so that whenever the load or fluid is applied on the component it
distributes uniformly. For meshing control, sizing for each edge. This sizing is for determine the number of divisions
along the edges. Since it will be better if the mesh will be compressed to the airfoil’s shape to have high concentration
of cells around it, then bias type will be used according to edge direction.

Figure 3. Edge sizing 1 Figure 5. Edge sizing 2

Figure 4. Edge sizing 3

4 Computational Fluid Dynamics

The details for each edge sizing will be different. In figure 3 and figure 4, there will be 50 number if divisions with hard
behavior (force ANSYS to do any number of division). The bias type pattern of figure 3 will be from high to small
divisions. The bias type pattern of figure 4 will be from small to high divisions. The bias type is to adjust the spacing
ratio of nodes on an edge. The bias factor will be set as 150, ratio of the largest edge to the smallest edge. For figure 5,
with 100 number of divisions with hard behavior without bias.
The face mesh that will be chosen regular mesh or structured mesh with quadrilaterals method due to simple geometry,
simpler to implement, can be easily addressed by a double of indices (i, j) in two dimensions, highly space efficient,
better convergence, and higher resolution. The material for the surrounding or boundary is fluid (air) since the
surrounding of the airfoil will be fluid.

Figure 6. Face meshing

The boundary conditions are selected as the inlet (blue color), outlet (red color), and airfoil-wall (white color). The inlet
type will be as velocity-inlet, outlet will be as pressure-outlet, and airfoil-wall as a wall.

Figure 7. Boundary conditions

Computational Fluid Dynamics 5

Figure 8. Complete mesh Figure 9. Zoom in from complete mesh

From the figure above, it shows that complete mesh is created with 15300 nodes and 15000 elements.
III. METHOD
There are several viscous models to solve the turbulent flow, Spalart-Allmaras, k-epsilon, k-omega, inviscid, laminar
etc. Spalart-Allmaras model will be used with some considerations of the benefit of it. This model is relatively simple
by using one equation model that solves a modeled transport equation for the kinematic viscosity, satisfying for complex
(quasi-2D) external/internal flows and boundary layer flows under pressure gradient. There are a few parameters in
FLUENT which is described in table below.
Table 1. Setup for complete mesh

Solver Pressure-based, steady state

Spalart-Allmaras
Viscous model
𝑘𝑔⁄
Density @10000m 0.41351
𝑚3

Dynamic viscosity @10000m 0.000014577 𝑁. 𝑠⁄ 2

𝑚
223.2521°𝐾
Temperature @10000 m
50 𝑚⁄𝑠
Inlet velocity
49.726 𝑚⁄𝑠
X-velocity (due to angle of attack)
5.226 𝑚⁄𝑠
Y-velocity (due to angle of attack)
10
Turbulent viscosity ratio
1𝑚
Chord length
−0.1045
Lift coefficient (force vector x-direction)
0.9945
Lift coefficient (force vector y-direction)
0.9945
Drag coefficient (force vector x-direction)
6 Computational Fluid Dynamics

0.1045
Drag coefficient (force vector y-direction)
Second order
Pressure
Second order upwind
Momentum
Second order upwind
Modified turbulent viscosity
SIMPLEC
Pressure-velocity coupling
From the table above, the solver that is chosen is pressure-based, steady state instead of density-based. Since the flow is
incompressible flow where the density is constant and generally this solver is used for incompressible (subsonic)
simulations. In both solvers, the velocity filed is obtained from momentum equations. Also, the pressure-based solver
may offer several model options that are not available with density-based method.
The atmospheric properties such as density, dynamic viscosity, and temperature are based on the altitude (@10000 m).
According these parameters, Reynolds number can be determined using the formula as follow.
𝜌×𝑣∞ ×𝑐
𝑅𝑒 = (1)
𝜇
𝑘𝑔
0.41351 ⁄ 3 ×50𝑚⁄𝑠×1𝑚
𝑚
𝑅𝑒 = = 1.4184 × 106 (2)
0.000014577𝑁.𝑠⁄ 2
𝑚

This Reynolds number can be categorized into high Reynolds number (more than 500000). For high Reynolds numbers
the momentum of the fluid determines its behavior more than the viscosity and the flow is turbulent. This value will be
used in XFOIL to be compared with ANSYS.
For the inlet velocity, since there is 6 degrees angle of attack, the velocity will not be only in x-direction, there will be in
y-direction as well. The calculation is written as follow.
𝑣𝑥 = 𝑣 × cos 6 (3)
𝑣𝑥 = 50 𝑚⁄𝑠 × cos 6 = 49.726 𝑚⁄𝑠 (4)
𝑣𝑦 = 𝑣 × sin 6 (5)
𝑣𝑦 = 50 𝑚⁄𝑠 × sin 6 = 5.226 𝑚⁄𝑠 (6)
Effect of angle of attack is not only for inlet velocity, it is for the force vector as well. Let’s take a look from the figure
below.

Figure 10. Aerodynamic force acting on the airfoil

Computational Fluid Dynamics 7

From the figure above, the force vector tends to the left due to angle of attack. Therefore, force vector of lift and drag
need to be determined by trigonometry triangle. It shows as follow.
L D

𝛼
𝛼
𝐿𝑥 = − sin 6 = −0.1045 (7)
𝐿𝑦 = cos 6 = 0.9945 (8)
𝐷𝑥 = cos 6 = 0.9945 (9)
𝐷𝑦 = sin 6 = 0.1045 (10)
In the boundary condition of the inlet, the specification method for turbulence is turbulent viscosity ratio. Turbulent
viscosity ratio is the ratio of dynamic viscosity and turbulent viscosity, they both must have values other than zero. If the
velocity is zero, there will be no turbulent viscosity. Because turbulent viscosity is a result of velocity. Since it is the
default format from the program itself, the value will not be changed.
For choosing the pressure-velocity coupling, ANSYS FLUENT provides four schemes types of algorithms. Since this is
steady-state problem, calculations will generally use SIMPLE or SIMPLEC. SIMPLEC stands for SIMPLE-Consistent.
By using SIMPLEC, many problems will benefit from using this. It can obtain a converged solution more quickly for
uncomplicated/complicated problems. For complicated flows especially turbulence, it will improve convergence only if
it is limited by pressure-velocity coupling.
In spatial discretization part, instead of using first-order, second-order is used for pressure, momentum, and modified
turbulent viscosity. It will be better to use first-order upwind discretization when the flow is aligned with the mesh
(quadrilateral or hexahedral mesh) to yield better convergence than second-order upwind. But it is also will be good by
using second-order upwind, since the result is needed to be accurate.
At the end, by inputting these parameters from the table in setup step, the result for lift and drag coefficient will be find
out.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As a result, when the airfoil with 6 degrees angle of attack, the high pressure will be at the leading edge (stagnation
point), and lower pressure will be on the upper surface. The pressure on the lower surface will be higher when the
incoming air hit the surface (zero velocity) and the incoming air will push the airfoil upward. For the velocity, as written
in introduction that since the pressure on the lower surface is high, the velocity on the upper surface will be high. On the
lower surface, the velocity is low due to high skin friction that occur on that. By increasing the angle of attack, the
pressure on the lower surface will get higher and velocity on the upper surface will get higher as well. In pressure plot it
shows that the highest pressure which act on the surface is approximately 5.012 × 102 𝑃𝑎 and for the velocity is
7.490 × 101 𝑚⁄𝑠 . The velocity behind the trailing edge is approximately will be in the middle due to More detail will
be show by the figures below.
8 Computational Fluid Dynamics

Figure 11. Static pressure plot at 6 degrees angle of attack Figure 12. Velocity plot at 6 degrees angle of attack

The approach that is used to calculate a turbulent flow is Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Simulation. Where all
turbulent motion is modeled. The highest turbulent occurs at the trailing edge. It is shown as figure below.

Figure 13. Turbulent viscosity plot at 6 degrees angle of attack

At 6 degrees angle of attack, it gives lift coefficient as 0.79444 and drag coefficient as 0.029377 which it takes 458
iterations. The lift coefficient will still increase as long as the angle of attack increases until it reaches stall and will
decrease after reaching stall region. As told in introduction, since this airfoil is not symmetric, lift coefficient will be
positive at zero angle of attack. These both iterations after reaching 100 iterations, it gets little linear and just only a
few rugged. The figure of lift and drag coefficient’s iteration will be show as follow.
Computational Fluid Dynamics 9

Figure 14. Lift coefficient's iteration Figure 15. Drag coefficient's iteration

As shown below, the lift coefficient yields 0.8818 and drag coefficient yields 0.01197. The necessary inputs for XFOIL
are Reynolds number and Mach number. Mach number is found according to freestream velocity and speed of sound.
𝑉
𝑀=𝑎 (11)
50𝑚⁄𝑠
𝑀= = 0.1669 (12)
299.5𝑚⁄𝑠

Figure 16. XFOIL's result

Table 2. Comparison of lift and drag coefficient

ANSYS XFOIL

Lift coefficient 0.79444 0.8818

10 Computational Fluid Dynamics

Drag coefficient 0.029377 0.01197

L/D 27.04 73.65

V. CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that NACA-2406 with 6 degrees angle of attack, its lift and drag coefficient result is found out by
ANSYS and XFOIL is almost the same except lift to drag result. The accuracy of ANSYS compare to XFOIL is satisfying
which does not have significant difference. Definitely these results are no 100% correct, there will be some errors about
the input value in ANSYS and XFOIL.
VI. REFERENCES
[1]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.sharcnet.ca/Software/Fluent6/index.htm
[2]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/scripts/atmosphere/
[3]. CornellX: ENGR2000X A Hands-on Introduction to Engineering Simulations. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:CornellX ENGR2000X 1T2018/course/
[4]. Azis, A. (2016, February 23). Workbench tutorial airfoil. Retrieved from
https://www.slideshare.net/apriansyahazis/workbench-tutorial-airfoil?qid=5faa6411-6a4b-4bc9-a83e-
489d73a90597&v=&b=&from_search=1
[5]. (PDF) 2D ANALYSIS OF NACA 4412 AIRFOIL. (2012, January 1). Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280641554_2D_ANALYSIS_OF_NACA_4412_AIRFOIL