Lift Coefficient of an Accelerating Wing with Ground Effect

A F1 car is always in a dynamic flow when racing. The most common case would be acceleration, deceleration and turning a corner. Due to the new rule by FIA since 2021, ground effect is much more significant for F1 car. Limited by the experimental set-up of F1 teams, flow under the car and accelerating flow are hard to be measured quantitatively....

Evaluating the feasibility of studying propeller-wing interaction through ground-based high-speed experimental taxi-tests: A numerical study comparing a propeller powered aircraft in cruising free-flight with high-speed taxiing

The Dutch Electric Aviation Centre possesses and uses a Cessna Skymaster 337F as an experimental flying testbed to help gain knowledge to aid the transition towards hybrid/ electric aviation. The interaction between the rear propeller slipstream and the horizontal tail has been likened to the interaction of propeller-wing configurations seen on...

Translationally Accelerating Wings in Ground Effect: A Numerical Study

Aerodynamics has played a significant role in the industry of motorsports in improving the performance and handling of the race car. Rob Smedley, the former head of vehicle performance at Williams Racing stated that - "Where teams have problems is when their development or simulation environment – so CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics] or wind...

Experimental and Numerical Analyses of a Novel Wing-in-Ground Vehicle

The AeroCity is a new form of transportation concept that has been developed to provide high-speed ground transportation at a much lower cost than the existing high-speed railway. Utilizing the Wing-in-Ground (WIG) effect, the AeroCity vehicle does not require complex infrastructures like other contemporary concepts, such as the Hyperloop or...

Position controller for a flapping-wing drone using ultra wide band

The continuous improvement and miniaturisation of elements in drones have been essential for making flapping-wing drones a reality. This thesis presents an integral approach for accurate indoor position control and estimation on flapping-wing drones. The approach considers three main aspects to enhance transient response of the drone. The first...

Numerical Investigation of the Influence of Ground Effect on the FV Aircraft: Influence of Ground Effect on the Flying V Aircraft

In order to meet the growing market demands of quieter, more aerodynamically efficient aircrafts, manufacturers constantly strive to innovate and optimize their designs. Over the years however, the extent of innovation related to the conventional 'tubular fuselage' configurations have somewhat reached a stalemate as the gains obtained have only...

CFD Investigation of the Ground Proximity Effect Performance of a Commercial Aircraft: Quantifying the Influence of Aircraft Geometry Configurations on Ground Effect Performance using a Modular-Meshing Approach

This thesis has two objectives: First, to investigate the behavior of typical twin engine commercial transport aircraft in ground effect under a wide range of conditions and geometry variations at the request of an aerospace company. And secondly, to add to the body of existing scientific knowledge on ground effect.In order to identify the...

Obstacle avoidance for quadrotors using reinforcement learning and obstacle-airflow interactions

This research investigates and proposes a new method for obstacle detection and avoidance on quadrotors. One that does not require the addition of any sensors, but relies solely on measurements from the accelerometer and rotor controllers. The detection of obstacles is based on the principle that the airflow around a quadrotor changes when the...

Wing in ground vehicles operating as high-speed passenger ferries: A feasibility and profitability study

Wing-in-ground (hereafter referred to as WIG) vehicles operate a few meters above water. The vehicles make use of the ground-effect (an effect where the drag is reduced, and the wings of the vehicles generate an increased lift). The unique speed and distance range of a WIG vehicle — a vehicle that, in functionality and appearance, sits somewhere...

A numerical investigation into the aerodynamic characteristics of AeroCity

Relaxed Static Stability Performance Assessment on Conventional and Unconventional Aircraft Configurations

This thesis report researches the influence of a reduced stability margin on the aircraft performance of conventional and unconventional aircraft configurations. Unconventional configurations are defined as canard and three-surface aircraft.

Direct Numerical Simulation and Large-Eddy Simulation of wake vortices: Going from laboratory conditions to flight conditions

This paper aims at presenting DNS and LES as applied to the simulation of vortex wakes: in laboratory conditions (moderate to medium Reynolds numbers) and up to real aircraft conditions (high to very high Reynolds numbers). Only incompressible flows are considered. DNS and LES are able to capture complex 3-D physics provided one uses high...

Comparison of Fokker F28 wind tunnel and flight data; a summary

For an accurate prediction of aircraft characteristics the wind tunnel tests are of paramount impoitance. Therefore the significance of the test results and available extrapolation techniques have to be investigated as thoroughly as possible. For this reason a program for comparing wind tunnel and flight test data of the Fokker F-28 was set up,...