Tomography systems and sensor application for sharp-edged delta wing analysis

Abstract

This paper presents the results on wind tunnel testing above non-slender sharp-edged delta wing under pitching motion. Above the sharp-edged delta wing the flow topology is very complex, disorganized and unresolved till date. The primary vortex onset is occurred at the wing apex of the sharp leading-edge delta wing and it develops from the leading edge of the wing to the trailing edge. There are several factors that influenced the vortex properties above the wing such as angle of attack, Reynolds number, Mach number, leading-edge bluntness and flow control techniques. The main objective of this study is to show the flow control technique effects known as the blower, above the sharp-edged non-slender delta wing on the flow topology. The experiments were carried out in the wind tunnel at Reynolds number of 0.8×106 with the speed of 25m/s. A generic delta wing model was fabricated in UTM with a sweep angle of 55˚, the model was designed to be installed to UTM Aerolab external strain gauge. During the experiments, the blowers were placed at three different positions 15%, 50% and 70% from the Apex of the wing and these locations are named as location I, II and III. In order to measure the vortex, a measurement technique called as surface pressure measurement was employed on the wing. The experiments were divided into two phases. The first phase was the clean wing configuration where the experiment was performed without the flow control. The final experiment was the experiments with the flow control at three different locations. The results have shown that the location of blower has influenced the flow characteristics above the wing. The result obtained shows that the blower at location I has an impact at higher angle of attack while with the blower at location II and III, the blower has significantly increased the primary vortex in size and at the high angle of attack the vortex breakdown is considerably delayed.