Exploration in Optimal Design of an Airfoil with a Leading Edge Rotating Cylinder

Based on the theory of moving surface boundary layer control(MSBC),a concept of an airfoil having a rotating cylinder at the leading edge has been developed and experimentally proven to have good aerodynamic performance even at large angles of attack.Thus,this research aims to give guidance on optimizing the design of this kind of airfoil with high lift coefficients.Using computational fluid dynamics(CFD)technique,the CFD simulation results have been compared with the experimental results available in the literature,and then the SST two-equation model is selected as the appropriate turbulence model.At a given cylinder surface velocity ratio,the cylinder diameter d,the drop height of trailing edgeδand the curvatures of the pressure and suction surfaces of the airfoil are regarded as the optimal design parameters and the airfoil lift coefficient is considered as the optimization objective function.Therefore,using orthogonal optimization method,we herein develop a new design of airfoil favorable for having a rotating leading edge.It has been numerically proven that the resulting airfoil has good capability of achieving a substantially superior performance when compared to the airfoils of the prior art.

Rotorcraft flight endurance estimation based on a new battery discharge model

To avoid the numerical complexities of the battery discharge law of electric-powered rotorcrafts,this study uses the Kriging method to model the discharge characteristics of Li-Po batteries under standard conditions.A linear current compensation term and an ambient temperature compensation term based on radial basis functions are then applied to the trained Kriging model,leading to the complete discharged capacity-terminal voltage model.Using an orthogonal experimental design and a sequential method,the coefficients of the current and ambient temperature compensation terms are determined through robust optimization.An endurance calculation model for electric-powered rotorcrafts is then established,based on the battery discharge model,through numerical integration.Laboratory tests show that the maximum relative error of the proposed discharged capacity-terminal voltage model at detection points is 0.0086,and that of the rotorcraft endurance calculation model is 0.0195,thus verifying their accuracy.A flight test further demonstrates the applicability of the proposed endurance model to general electric-powered rotorcrafts.