Fatigue Assessment of Steel Frames under Aerodynamic Loads: In Application to Steel Hollow Section Portal Frames Supporting Traffic Signs

Although modern technologies such as smartphones with GPS functionality make navigation substantially easier, automobilists still rely on traffic signs to inform them which exit to take or which lane to follow. These traffic signs on highways are of substantial size rendering them, and their support structures, extremely susceptible to...

Propeller Analysis with Adjoint Method using SU2

To cater to the increasing demand in short-range passenger air transport and the research in electric and hybrid aircraft, there is a renewed interest in the research of propellers. Propellers are known to have high aerodynamic efficiency, which translates to lower fuel burn in comparison to other jet engines, making it an attractive option for...

Aerodynamic and Aeroacoustic Interaction Effects of a Distributed-Propeller Configuration in Forward Flight: A Computational Investigation

The Advisory Council of Aviation Research has set the future goals of sustainable development in aviation by reducing pollutant emissions of CO2 by 75% and 90% in NOx emissions per passenger kilometre and noise emission by 65% of the perceived noise level compared with the measurements in 2000. This demand has led to the development of new...

Frozen-RANS Turbulence Model Corrections for Wind Turbine Wakes in Stable, Neutral and Unstable Atmospheric Boundary Layers

Computational Fluid Dynamics based on RANS models remain the standard but suffer from high errors in complex flows. In particular, turbulent kinetic energy is over-produced in high strain rate regions, such as the near wake of wind turbine flows. Data-driven turbulence modelling methods aim to derive novel turbulence models with lower...

Experimental investigation of compliant coatings in turbulent boundary layers in air

Inspired by the dolphin skin, compliant coatings have been researched as a passive flow control solution to reduce drag. Both successful and drag-increasing experiments can be found in the literature. However, the mechanism is not well understood neither the combination of surface properties and flow conditions that yield a drag reduction. At...

The effect of landing gear implementation on Flying V aerodynamics, stability and controllability

Initially conceptualised by Benad in 2015 as a highly swept flying wing aircraft to replace the A350-900, the Flying V design has since been refined in several later studies at both Airbus and TU Delft. The initial aerodynamic efficiency gain estimation was refined by Faggiano and Rubio-Pascual, confirming the interest of the solution. To...

The Longitudinal Static Stability and Control Characteristics of a Flying V Scaled Model: An Experimental and Numerical Investigation

Despite widespread research into the possibilities of improving aerodynamic efficiency, a plateau seems to have been reached for the conventional configuration. Hence, the potential of unconventional configurations are being investigated in recent years. Flying V is one such configuration that promises a lift to drag ratio about 24 in cruise...

Accuracy assessment of the Ring of Fire system for on-site aerodynamic drag measurements

The continuous pursuit of reducing drag in many speed sports, such as cycling and ice-skating, demands novel approaches to gain further insight into flow phenomena around athletes. In recent years, the Ring of Fire measurement technique has emerged as a feasible option to visualise and analyse flow structures of transiting objects based on...

Engine-Airframe Integration for the Flying-V

The Flying-V is a novel flying wing concept where the main lifting surface has been fully integrated with the passenger cabin. Previous studies have focused on the aerodynamic and structural design of the airframe; but, prior to determining which engine-airframe integration alternative is most beneficial (e.g. boundary layer ingestion, distributed...

Aerodynamic Design and Optimization of a Hyperloop Vehicle

The Hyperloop is a newly proposed transportation method which caters to the rising demand of high-speed transportation, while adhering to stringent emission requirements. This system comprises pods that are propelled through a partially evacuated tube at velocities of 300 m/s. The low-pressure environment paired with high-subsonic Mach numbers...

Definition and Response Validation of a Simplified Aero-Servo-Elastic Wind Turbine Model

Currently, the foundation design of offshore wind turbines is based on a simple cantilever beam model with a mass representing the rotor and nacelle, or by making use of wind turbine simulation software such as Bladed, which are built for rotor design. The simple models are unrealistic since the dynamic interaction between the aerodynamic loads,...