An Experimental and Numerical Study on a Small-Scale Joined-Wing Aircraft

This paper reports upon a collaborative experimental and numerical study between Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore and German Aerospace Centre (DLR) into the aerodynamic performance of a small-scale joined-wing aircraft configuration. Experimental testing involved subsonic wind tunnel tests on the test model at Reynolds numbers of Re=31,000 and 62,000 to obtain its lift and drag characteristics through anglesof-attack ranging from -10 to 25 . These results were then used for validation purposes against steady and unsteady 3D numerical simulations conducted at the NTU High Performance Computing Centre (HPCC). Findings demonstrate that satisfactory agreements between the experimental and numerical results in terms of lift performance can be achieved. However, more accurate prediction of the more unique localized lift characteristics remains lacking. Drag performance shows a relatively larger discrepancy between the experimental and numerical work, particularly for angles-of-attack smaller than 10 . These discrepancies are likely to be caused by the rigid-wing assumption used in the numerical study and as such, plans to overcome this in the next stage of investigation will be outlined in this paper.