On the drag reduction of an inclined wing via microstructures with the immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann flux solver

Flow separation control has a wide application prospect in drag reduction for industry. This paper numerically studies the effect of microstructures on flow separation and drag reduction. Simple morphological microstructures, derived from the tilted shark scales, are attached to the wing at an angle of attack. The spacing and height of microstructures are made dimensionless by using the microstructure width and half of the wing width, respectively, that is, (d) over tilde (m) = d(m)=d(AB) and (h) over tilde (m) = h(m)=(H/2). The angle of attack is set to 10 degrees. It is found that microstructures can reduce the motion amplitude of shed vortices, thereby suppressing flow separation and reducing drag. Both the planar and curved microstructures have excellent drag reduction performance. The microstructure spacing (d) over tildem and tilt angle h should not be too large or too small; otherwise, it will weaken the drag reduction ability. Cases (d) over tilde (m) = 1:51; h = 20 degrees, and h = 30 degrees exhibit excellent drag reduction performance. The microstructure has the characteristic for being small, yet it needs to reach a certain height (h) over tilde (m) to effectively reduce drag. The case (h) over tilde (m) = 0:667 is the most superior choice. Based on the proposed microstructure shape and spacing, the drag reduction performance of microstructures can reach more than 28%. Meanwhile, the drag reduction performance of microstructures increases with the improvement of the attachment proportion pm, and case p(m) >= 50% is suggested for significant drag reduction performance. Finally, we discuss the drag reduction performance of microstructures on the wing at different angles of attack and find that microstructures can achieve good drag reduction, provided that the pressure drag caused by the flow separation is a significant proportion of the total drag and the flow separation occurs within the controllable range of microstructures.

Automated summary

This paper numerically studies the effect of microstructures on flow separation and drag reduction. It is found that microstructures can reduce the motion amplitude of shed vortices, thereby suppressing flow separation and reducing drag. Both the planar and curved microstructures have excellent drag reduction performance.