Meccanica (2015) 50:1481–1494

DOI 10.1007/s11012-015-0100-9

Three-dimensional suction flow control and suction jet

length optimization of NACA 0012 wing
Kianoosh Yousefi • Reza Saleh

Received: 8 December 2013 / Accepted: 8 January 2015 / Published online: 23 January 2015
Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract A three-dimensional suction flow control with center suction than with tip suction. Ultimately,
study was performed to investigate the aerodynamic when the jet length is less than half the wingspan, tip
characteristics of a rectangular wing with a NACA suction is the better of the two alternatives, and when
0012 airfoil section. In addition, the optimum suction the jet length is greater than half the wingspan, center
jet length was determined. In this study, the Reynolds- suction is better suited.
averaged Navier–Stokes equations were employed in
conjunction with a k–x SST turbulent model. Perpen- Keywords 3D simulation  NACA 0012 wing 
dicular suction was applied at the leading edge of the Flow control  Suction  Jet length
wing’s upper surface, with two different types of slot
distributions: i.e., center suction and tip suction. The
suction jet lengths were varied by 0.25–2 of the chord
length, and the jet velocity was selected to be 0.5 times 1 Introduction
the freestream velocity. Most importantly, in both
cases, the results indicated that the lift-to-drag ratio Airplane wing performance has a substantial effect on
increased as the suction jet length rose. However, the not only the runway length, approach speed, climb
improvement in aerodynamic characteristics was rate, cargo capacity, and operation range but also the
more pronounced with center suction, and these community noise and emission levels [1]. The wing
characteristics were extremely close to those of the performance is often degraded by flow separation,
case considering suction over the entire wing such that which strongly depends on the aerodynamic design of
the jet length was equal to wingspan. Moreover, in the the airfoil profile. Furthermore, non-aerodynamic
center suction case, vortexes frequently abated or constraints are often in conflict with aerodynamic
moved downstream. Interestingly, under similar con- restrictions, and flow control is required to overcome
ditions, a greater number of vortexes were removed such difficulties. Techniques that have been developed
to manipulate the boundary layer, either to increase the
lift or decrease the drag, and separation delay are
classified under the general heading of flow control
[2]. Flow control methods are divided into passive,
which require no auxiliary power and no control loop,
K. Yousefi (&)  R. Saleh
and active, which require energy expenditure. Passive
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mashhad Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran techniques include geometric shaping, the use of
e-mail: [email protected] vortex generators, and the placement of longitudinal

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grooves or riblets on airfoil surfaces. Examples of separation and evaluated the effectiveness of synthetic
active flow control methods include steady suction or jets as a separation control technique. They demon-
blowing, unsteady suction or blowing, and the use of strated and confirmed that synthetic jet actuation
synthetic jets. effectively delays the onset of flow separation and
Over the past several decades, numerous surveys significantly increases the lift coefficient. Recently,
have been conducted on suction and blowing flow Bres et al. [23] performed a computational study on
control approaches. Prandtl was the first scientist to pulsed-blowing flow control of a semicircular plan-
employ boundary layer suction on a cylindrical form wing. Overall, their results showed that the
surface for delaying flow separation. The earliest technique had good feasibility for industrial applica-
known experimental studies [3–5] on the boundary tions, particularly MAVs, and was effective at con-
layer suction of wings were carried out in the late trolling separation.
1930s and 1940s, primarily in wind tunnels. Suction Recently, there have been many studies on flow
and blowing approaches have since emerged and been control approaches, particularly for two-dimensional
evaluated in a variety of experiments [6–9] to improve (2D) flow fields [24–26]. However, 3D surveys of
the efficiency and stability of lift systems. With the active/passive flow control techniques are severely
recent advances in computational facilities, computa- limited owing to the convoluted flow conditions over
tional fluid dynamics (CFD) is increasingly being used wings. The flow over an airfoil is inherently complex
for investigating three-dimensional flow fields. Shan and exhibits a variety of physical phenomena such as
et al. [10] numerically studied the flow separation and strong pressure gradients, flow separation, and the
transition around a NACA 0012 airfoil using the direct confluence of boundary layers and wakes. The flow over
numerical simulation (DNS) method and captured an airfoil is two-dimensional; in contrast, a finite wing is
details regarding flow separation, vortex shedding, and a three-dimensional body, so the flow over a finite wing
boundary layer reattachment. Moreover, several three- is three-dimensional. Hence, the characteristics of a
dimensional CFD studies [11–15] have been carried finite wing are not identical to the characteristics of its
out to simplify the simulation of flow fields around airfoil sections, so the numerical computations of flow
airfoils by neglecting active or passive flow control over a finite wing are more challenging. The flow over a
techniques. In addition, flow control methods such as wing has additional parameters compared to its airfoil
suction, blowing, and the use of synthetic jets have section, including the induced drag, downwash, and
been investigated experimentally [16–19] over thick trailing vortex. Accordingly, the 3D simulation of a
and NACA airfoils under different flow conditions. In finite wing is highly complex and costly. This has
these studies, the effects of control devices were apparently led to a lack of numerical surveys on 3D flow
considered on the lift and drag coefficients, mean control. Therefore, the present study numerically
pressure coefficients, separation and transition loca- investigated the influence of the suction flow control
tions, and wake profiles. technique on a rectangular wing with a NACA 0012
Unfortunately, three-dimensional (3D) flow control section and optimization of the suction slot length. The
surveys are severely limited. Deng et al. [20] examined computations incorporated a number of parameters: i.e.,
blowing flow control via the DNS method to optimize the jet length, momentum coefficient, and angle of
the blowing jets. They studied the effects of different attack at a Reynolds number of 5 9 105. The 3D
unsteady blowing jets on the surface at locations just simulation results were compared to experimental and
before the separation points, and the separation bubble numerical data for both controlled and uncontrolled
length was significantly reduced after unsteady blow- cases; the effects of flow control on the lift and drag
ing was applied. Brehm et al. [21] employed CFD coefficients were examined, and the optimum length of
methods to investigate flow fields around uncontrolled the suction jet was determined.
and controlled NACA 643-618 airfoils by blowing and
suction through a slot using 3D Navier–Stokes simu-
lations. They found that exploiting the hydrodynamic 2 Governing equations
instability of the base flow made control more effec-
tive. You and Moin [22] performed a numerical large The fluid flow was modeled as a three-dimensional,
eddy simulation (LES) study of turbulent flow unsteady, turbulent, and viscous incompressible flow

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with constant properties. The governing partial dif- where F1 is the blending function, S is the invariant
ferential equations for the conservation of mass and measure of the strain rate, b* is 0.09, and rw2 is 0.856.
momentum are as follows: The blending function is equal to zero away from the
o
ui surface (k–e model) and switches to unity inside the
¼0 ð1Þ boundary layer (k–x model). The production limiter
oxi
P~k is used in the SST model to prevent the buildup of
 
o 1 oP o o
ui turbulence in stagnant regions. All constants are
ð
ui uj Þ ¼ þ v  u0i u0j ð2Þ computed by a blend of the corresponding constants
oxj q oxi oxj oxj
for the k–e and k–x models via a, rk, rx, etc. [28].
where q is the density, P is the mean pressure, v is the
kinematic viscosity, and u is the mean velocity. The
Reynolds stress tensor u0i u0j incorporates the effects 3 Numerical methodology
of turbulent fluctuations. The Reynolds stresses were
modeled via the Boussinesq approximation [27], 3.1 Wing geometry
where the deviatoric part is taken to be proportional
to the strain rate tensor through the turbulent viscosity. All calculations were performed for a rectangular
The incompressible form of the Boussinesq approx- wing with a NACA 0012 airfoil section having a chord
imation is length of 1 m, as shown in Fig. 1. Since a rectangular
  wing was considered, the taper ratio was equal to 1.
oui ouj 2 The aspect ratio is an important geometric property of
u0i u0j ¼ vt þ  kdij ð3Þ
oxj oxi 3 a finite wing that varies according to the airplane
performance and a predetermined cost. The aspect
1  02 
k¼ u þ v02 þ w02 ð4Þ ratio is typically 4–12 for standard airplanes [29–31],
2 and the most commonly applied aspect ratios are 4–6.
In the above equation, vt is the turbulent viscosity, Therefore, an aspect ratio of 4 was used in the present
k is the average kinetic energy of the velocity study; i.e., the wingspan was four times the length of
fluctuations, and dij is the Kronecker delta. In order the wing chord length (in rectangular wings, the tip
to simulate the turbulent flow, eddy viscosity turbulent chord length is equal to the root chord length). Owing
models such as algebraic or zero-equation models, to the symmetrical geometry of the wing, the symme-
one-equation models, and two-equation models try condition was used in all cases to reduce the
employ the eddy or turbulent viscosity distribution computation cost. Consequently, all of the figures
rather than the Reynolds stress tensor. show half of the wing in the Z direction.
The present computation used the Menter’s shear
stress transport two-equation model (k–x SST) for the 3.2 Grid setup
turbulence; this model provides excellent predictive
capability for flows with separation. This model A C-type zone with multizonal blocks was generated
includes both k–x and k–e standard models, which as a computational area, as shown in Fig. 2. The
improves the calculations of boundary layer flows with computational area was chosen to be large enough to
separation and removes the sensitivity of the k–x prevent the outer boundary from affecting the near
model for external flows. The transport equations in
Menter’s shear stress model are as follows:
 
o o ok
ðqUi kÞ ¼ P~k  b qkx þ ðl þ rk lt Þ ð5Þ
oxi oxi oxi
 
o o ox
ðqUi xÞ ¼ aqS2  bqx2 þ ðl þ rx lt Þ
oxi oxi oxi
1 ok ox
þ 2ð1  F1 Þqrw2 ð6Þ
x oxi oxi Fig. 1 Rectangular wing with NACA 0012 airfoil section

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flow field around the airfoil. The grid extended from - sensitive computation areas, so the number of grid
4C upstream to 11C downstream, and the upper and points in these blocks was most critical. In order to
lower boundaries extended 5C from the profile. ensure grid independence, five sets of grids with
Furthermore, the grid extended 4C in the spanwise increasing grid density were used to study lift and drag
direction, which was divided into two regions with coefficients under a Reynolds number of 5 9 105, and
lengths of 2C for each area along the lateral axis. The angles of attack of 16° and 18° to determine the
wing was located in the first region, and the fluid flow baseline conditions; the results are listed in Table 1.
of air was in the next area (adjacent to the wing). According to Table 1, the differences between sets 3
Applying such a division allowed the use of fine-grid and 4 and between sets 4 and 5 were less than 1 %. To
patches near the wing and in the regions of highly maintain grid-resolution consistency for different
active flow since the most important physical phe- cases and with relatively high accuracy, the dense
nomena occurred in this area: e.g., boundary layer grid of set 4 was adopted for the current computation.
separation, wakes, and vortexes. Moreover, the grid Set 4 had about 1,700,000 cells, and the computation
with multizonal blocks, total of 13 blocks, reduced the time was around 22 h using a computer with 20
costs and allowed the capture of vital phenomena. processors for each case.
The inlet (left) and bottom boundaries were fixed At angles of attack of less than 18°, even the coarse
with a uniform inlet velocity of u? = 7.3 m/s, and the grid provided acceptable accuracy. Set 2 had approx-
outer (right) and top boundary conditions were free imately 625,000 cells, and increasing the grid density
stream boundaries that satisfied the Neumann condi- varied the lift and drag coefficients by negligible
tion. The symmetry condition was used for XY planes, amounts of about 5 and 1 %, respectively. Neverthe-
as illustrated in Fig. 2. The no-slip boundary condition less, the variations in the lift and drag coefficients were
was used at solid surfaces, and the transpiration significant when the angle of attack was 18° or more.
boundary condition was applied at the determined jet In this study, in order to simulate the boundary layer
location to simulate suction. A low freestream turbu- flow properly, the first layer grid near the wall satisfied
lence level was used to match the wind tunnel the condition of y-plus \1.
characteristics, so the stream turbulence intensity
was less than 0.1 %. 3.3 Numerical method
A structured grid was used in this investigation. The
blocks around and beside the wing were the most The commercial RANS-based code FLUENT, which
is based on a finite volume computational procedure,
was used in this study. In the simulations, first- and
second-order upwind discretization schemes were
employed to discretize the convective terms in the
momentum and turbulence equations. A first-order
upwind discretization in space was used, and the
resulting system of equations was then solved using
the SIMPLE procedure until the convergence criterion
of O(3) reduction for all dependent residuals was
satisfied. The second-order upwind method was then
applied to discretize the equations; following that, the
equations were resolved through the SIMPLE method
until precise convergence was achieved at O(6) for all
dependent residuals. The results obtained from the
first-order upwind method were used as the initial
assumption for the second-order upwind method. The
central difference scheme was also used for the
diffusive terms, and the SIMPLE algorithm was
Fig. 2 C-type zone for NACA 0012 wing with multizonal
blocks, 13 blocks in total, and symmetry boundary conditions applied for pressure–velocity coupling. The residuals
for z = 0, -4 planes in all simulations continued until the lift and drag

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Table 1 Grid Number of cells Angle of attack 16° Angle of attack 18°
independence study for
NACA 0012 wing at Lift Drag Lift Drag
Re = 5 9 105 and angles coefficient coefficient coefficient coefficient
of attack of 16° and 18°
Set 1: 422,440 0.9283 0.1277 1.0349 0.1609
Set 2: 625,640 0.9177 0.1278 0.8954 0.1805
Set 3: 1,048,080 0.9022 0.127 0.8309 0.1821
Set 4: 1,673,720 0.8961 0.1268 0.7339 0.1945
Set 5: 2,299,360 0.8979 0.1268 0.7381 0.1956

coefficients reached full convergence. However, com-

plete convergence occurred less frequently for small
angles of attack, and the number of iterations rose as
the angle of attack increased.
The present study used a Reynolds number of
5 9 105; consequently, a fully turbulent flow was
reasonably assumed, and no transition was involved
in the computations. This simulation employed par-
allel processing to allow different computational
zones to be solved on different processors. The
present study used a 20-core supercomputer (Intel
Core i5-2500 K processor with 20 GB RAM and the
Windows 7 64-bit operating system with service pack
1), which was supported by the Mechanical Engi-
neering Department at Islamic Azad University,
Mashhad Branch.
The computation results were compared with the Fig. 3 Comparison between computation results, previous
2D numerical simulation data of Yousefi et al. [24] numerical data [24, 26], and experimental results [32, 33]
and Huang et al. [26], and the experimental results of
Jacobs et al. [32] and Critzos et al. [33], as shown in Huang et al. [26] by about 25 and 6 %, respectively,
Fig. 3. All of these studies were performed at a at the stall angle; they were 27 and 20 % closer,
Reynolds number of 5 9 105. As shown in the figure, respectively, at an angle of attack of 18°. It can be
the computation results agreed well with the exper- seen from Fig. 3 and other studies [32, 34] that the
imental values of Jacobs et al. The highest recorded experimental data in the literature vary widely,
error for the lift and drag coefficients was less than which implies a large amount of experimental
5 % when compared with the experimental values. uncertainty. This uncertainty can be attributed to
However, both numerical works using 2D and 3D several factors, such as different flow regimes,
simulations showed that stalling occurred at an angle angles of attack, and airfoil geometries. In addition
of attack of 14°, whereas the empirical measure- to the inherent complexity of turbulent regimes, the
ments indicated that the NACA 0012 wing stalled at differences between the experimental and numerical
an angle of attack of 12°. The computational results simulation results for the airfoils and wings can be
of the lift and drag coefficients more closely agreed caused by other errors and difficulties on both the
with the experimental data relative to other numer- experimental and numerical sides. On the experi-
ical works. For the lift coefficient, the present mental side, installation errors for the wing model,
computation results were closer to the empirical disturbances to the measurement device, interfer-
measurements than those of Yousefi et al. [24] and ence between the wind-tunnel wall and wing body,

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and freestream turbulence can create errors in direction. A negative h represents a suction condition,
measurement. On the numerical simulation side, and a positive h indicates a blowing condition. For
turbulence models, artificial viscosity, and grid perpendicular suction, h is -90°. The effects of the
density can develop computational inaccuracies. suction jet were characterized through an important
Despite these challenges, the present computation dimensionless parameter, the momentum coefficient
eliminated the limitations of two-dimensional [35, 36]:
simulation.
Mj qAj u2j
Cl ¼ ¼ ð9Þ
3.4 Parameter selection M1 qA1 u21
The wing surface area and suction jet area are
The perpendicular suction at the leading edge over a defined as Aµ = c 9 b and Aj = h 9 bs, respec-
rectangular wing with a NACA 0012 airfoil profile tively, where b is the wingspan, h is the suction width,
was computationally investigated. Figure 4 shows and bs refers to the suction length. By substituting the
the suction jet location (Lj), jet width (h), and jet above relations into Eq. 10, the jet momentum coef-
length (bs) for the NACA 0012 wing. According to ficient is represented as
previous studies [6, 24], the optimum width of the
 
suction area is about 2.5 % of the chord length, and qðh  bs Þu2j bs h uj 2
Cl ¼ ¼ ð10Þ
the aerodynamic characteristics do not increase qðc  bÞu21 b c u1
significantly beyond this size. Consequently, the
suction jet width was fixed to 2.5 % of the chord Working with dimensionless parameters is more
length for all computations. The perpendicular convenient; therefore, the following dimensionless
suction at the leading edge for 0.075–0.125 of the variables were defined: jet amplitude (A), jet width
chord length was better than other suction situations (H), and jet length (B).
at increasing lift [26]; therefore, the jet location was uj
A¼ ð11Þ
set to 10 % of the chord length from the leading edge. u1
The suction jet length (bs) was varied from 0.25 to 2
of the chord length. The jet amplitude, or the jet h
H¼ ð12Þ
velocity to the freestream velocity ratio, was set to C
0.5. Furthermore, angles of attack of 12°, 14°, 16°,
bs
and 18° were used for analysis. The jet entrance B¼ ð13Þ
b
velocity is defined as
All of the above parameters change over the range
u ¼ uj  cosðh þ bÞ ð7Þ
0 \ A, H, B \ 1.0. The jet momentum coefficient is
ultimately expressed as
v ¼ uj  sinðh þ bÞ ð8Þ
Cl ¼ BHA2 ð14Þ
where b is the angle between the freestream velocity
direction and local jet surface, and h is also the angle As shown in Eq. 14, the jet momentum coefficient
between the local jet surface and jet output velocity depends on the three dimensionless parameters A, H
and B. The jet amplitude and jet width were assumed
to be 0.5 and 0.025, respectively. Consequently, by
changing the jet length to 0.25–2 of the chord length,
the jet momentum coefficient varied between 0.00078
and 0.00625. Thus, the momentum coefficient covered
a greater range than those used in previous experi-
mental and numerical investigations.
One innovation of this study was that the suction
over the wing was incomplete for jet lengths of less
than 2C, and the whole wingspan area was not covered
Fig. 4 NACA 0012 wing with suction slot by suction slots. This incomplete suction area

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Fig. 5 NACA 0012 wing

with center suction slot:
a full view and b symmetric
view

Fig. 6 NACA 0012 wing

with tip suction slot: a full
view and b symmetric view

provided two different distributions of suction slots coefficient increased by 60 % and the drag coefficient
over the wing. Hence, suction can occur from the decreased by 30 %. Using jet lengths of 0.25, 0.5, 1,
center of the wing (i.e., center suction) or from the 1.5, and 1.75 of the chord length increased the lift-to-
wing tip (i.e., tip suction); these are shown in Figs. 5 drag ratio by 2, 6, 51, 85, and 122 %, respectively, at
and 6, respectively. an angle of attack of 18°.
As shown in Figs. 10 and 11, the velocity contours
and streamline patterns of different jet lengths were
4 Results and discussion compared with the baseline case for further explora-
tion. The figures plot the results for jet lengths of 0.5,
4.1 Center suction 1.0, and 1.5C against the no-control case under a jet
amplitude of 0.5, jet location of 0.1 %, and angle of
The obtained analysis results for the perpendicular attack of 18°. In all cases, the streamline patterns
suction over the NACA 0012 wing are given below. clearly demonstrated smaller wakes on the wing than
First, the effect of the jet length on the aerodynamic the baseline case without a jet implementation. When
characteristics was investigated for the center suction. the jet length was increased, the separation bubble was
Figures 7, 8 and 9 show the changes in the lift effectively delayed; hence, the separation bubbles and
coefficient, drag coefficient, and lift-to-drag ratio wakes were almost entirely eliminated for suction jet
versus the angle of attack for different jet lengths of lengths of 1C and above, especially at 1.75C. There-
the center suction. Increasing the suction jet length fore, among the tested jet lengths, a suction jet length of
increased the lift coefficient and decreased the drag about 1.75 of the chord length produces the most
coefficient, which increased the lift-to-drag ratio. This positive effect on aerodynamic features to manipulate
improvement in the lift-to-drag ratio was negligible the boundary layer in order to increase the lift-to-drag
for angles of attack of less than 14°, but the suction ratio and remove undesirable vortexes. Increasing the
flow control had a pivotal impact beyond the stall jet length makes the flow over the wing more stable;
angle, particularly at angles of attack of 18° and above. however, the difference when the jet length was greater
When suction flow control was applied to the NACA than the chord length was insignificant, particularly for
0012 wing, the lift-to-drag ratio reached its maximum jet lengths of 1.75 and 2 of the chord length.
when the jet length was equal to the wingspan. At this Unfortunately, there has been no experimental and
point, the momentum coefficient was 0.00625. In this 3D numerical work on suction flow control techniques
situation, the center and tip suctions were the same: the for this airfoil under the flow conditions used in the
lift-to-drag ratio increased by 130 % as the lift current computation; thus, only 2D simulation was

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Fig. 7 Effect of suction jet length on lift coefficient of NACA Fig. 9 Effect of suction jet length on lift-to-drag ratio of NACA
0012 wing for center suction 0012 wing for center suction

4.2 Tip suction

Figures 12, 13 and 14 show the effects of the changes

in jet length on the lift coefficient, drag coefficient, and
lift-to-drag ratio. Similar to the center suction,
increasing the jet length for the tip suction caused
the lift coefficient to rise and the drag coefficient to
fall, which improved the lift-to-drag ratio. The max-
imum increase in the aerodynamic characteristics,
particularly the lift-to-drag ratio, again occurred when
the jet length was 1.75 of the chord length at 43 %; the
lift coefficient increased 25 %, whereas the drag
coefficient decreased 17 %. The lift-to-drag ratio
increased by 9, 12, 16, and 25 % for jet lengths of
Fig. 8 Effect of suction jet length on drag coefficient of NACA 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 of the chord length, respectively.
0012 wing for center suction
When the jet length was less than the chord length, the
tip suction was better at increasing the aerodynamic
available to validate the controlled situation. In order features compared to the center suction. For example,
to provide an accurate comparison with the computa- when the jet length was 0.5 of the chord length, the
tional data, the ratio of the controlled lift coefficient center and tip suctions increased the lift-to-drag ratio
CL to the uncontrolled or natural lift coefficient CL,B of by 6 and 12 %, respectively. Thus, the tip suction
the present three-dimensional simulation was com- increased the lift-to-drag ratio by twofold compared to
pared with other two-dimensional numerical results the center suction. Figures 15 and 16 show the
under a jet location of 0.1 %, jet amplitude of 0.5, changes in the velocity contours and flow patterns
momentum coefficient of 0.00625, and angle of attack due to variations in the jet length for the tip suction at
of 18°. Yousefi et al. [24] and Huang et al. [26] had CL/ an angle of attack of 18°. Lengthening the jet clearly
CL,B ratios of 1.75 and 1.55, respectively, whereas the had a positive impact. The flow pattern at a jet length
present finite wing simulation had a ratio of 1.60. of 0.25 of the chord length was essentially the same as

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Fig. 10 Velocity contour at

Z = -1 plane and angle of
attack of 18° for center
suction: a no control,
b bs = 0.5 C, c bs = 1.0 C,
and d bs = 1.5

Fig. 11 Effect of suction

jet length on streamlines
over finite wing at angle of
attack of 18° for center
suction: a no control,
b bs = 0.5C, c bs = 1.0C,
and d bs = 1.5C

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Fig. 12 Effect of suction jet length on lift coefficient of NACA Fig. 14 Effect of suction jet length on lift-to-drag ratio of
0012 wing for tip suction NACA 0012 wing for tip suction

4.3 Comparison of center and tip suctions

The differences between the center and tip suctions are

presented below. Figures 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21
compare the lift-to-drag ratios of the center and tip
suctions for different jet lengths at angles of attack of
12°–18°. The results showed that center suction was
the better choice in more cases. Increasing the suction
jet length made center suction more effective, and the
lift-to-drag ratio increased more with center suction
than with tip suction. For center suction, when the jet
length was 0.25 of the chord length and the angle of
attack was 18°, the lift coefficient increased by 2 %,
and the drag coefficient remained roughly constant.
With tip suction, the lift coefficient increased 5 %, and
the drag coefficient decreased 2 %. However when the
Fig. 13 Effect of suction jet length on drag coefficient of suction jet length was 1.75 of the chord length with the
NACA 0012 wing for tip suction
same angle of attack, the lift coefficient increased by
58 and 25 % and the drag coefficient declined by 28
the baseline case, and fewer wakes were eliminated, in and 12.5 % with center and tip suctions, respectively.
contrast to the center suction in similar situations, even Figures 11 and 16 clearly show that the separation was
when the jet was very long. most effectively delayed when center suction was
Three factors affect the lift and drag: changes in the applied, and the wake profiles were much smaller
upper surface pressure; variations in shear stress near the compared to the other case. Center suction eliminated
surface, and changes in the overall circulation about the more vortexes since most of the wakes were concen-
wing. These were extensively examined in several trated at the center of the wing when there was no
studies [6, 26] that determined the pivotal driving factors control. Vortexes naturally start from the wing tip and
that cause changes in the lift and drag coefficients. develop toward the center.

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Fig. 15 Velocity contour at

Z = - 1 plane and angle of
attack of 18° for tip suction:
a no control, b bs = 0.5C,
c bs = 1.0C, and
d bs = 1.5C

Fig. 16 Effect of suction

jet length on streamlines
over finite wing at angle of
attack of 18° for tip suction:
a no control, b bs = 0.5C,
c bs = 1.0 C, and
d bs = 1.5C

Thus, when the suction jet length was 0\B B 0.5, most effective choice. In other words, when the length
tip suction was the best choice, and when the suction of the suction area is less than half of the wingspan, tip
jet length was 0.5 \ B B 1.0, center suction was the suction is more suitable than center suction, and when

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Fig. 17 Comparison of lift-to-drag ratios for center and tip Fig. 19 Comparison of lift-to-drag ratios for center and tip
suctions with jet length of 0.25C suctions with jet length of 1.0C

Fig. 18 Comparison of lift-to-drag ratios for center and tip Fig. 20 Comparison of lift-to-drag ratios for center and tip
suctions with jet length of 0.5C suctions with jet length of 1.5C

the length of the suction area is greater than half of the 5 Conclusion
wingspan, center suction is better. The optimum jet
length for perpendicular suction of a NACA 0012 This study evaluated the effects of suction flow control
wing is ultimately expressed as follows: on a rectangular wing with a NACA 0012 airfoil
 section at a Reynolds number of 5 9 105 and different
0\B  0:5 Tip Suction angles of attack. The suction jet length was varied over
ð15Þ
0:5\B  1 Center Suction a wide range to determine the optimum jet length. This

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for providing vital resources for the supercomputer cluster. We

also thank Dr. Behrooz Zafarmand for his valuable suggestions
during the planning and development of this research.

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