Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes Simulations of Unyawed and Yawed Rotating Wheels

Aerodynamics has been an important aspect of the automotive industry for decades with the wheels being a notable contributing factor. They are responsible for up to 25% of the drag in the case of a general passenger car and up to 30%-50% for an open-wheeled race car.<br/> In this research, the aerodynamic characteristics of an isolated rotating...

Aerodynamic Design of a Flying V Aircraft in Transonic Conditions

The Flying V is a long-range, flying-wing aircraft where payload and fuel both reside in a V-shaped, crescent wing with large winglets that double as vertical tail planes. The objective of this study is to maximize the lift-to-drag (&#x1d43f;/&#x1d437;) ratio of the Flying V in cruise conditions, i.e. &#x1d436;&#x1d43f; = 0.26, &#x1d440; = 0.85...

Multi-objective Aerodynamic Assessment and Optimization of Winglets for the Flying-V Aircraft Configuration

The Flying-V is a disruptive flying wing aircraft configuration that was realized at the Airbus Future Projects Office (FPO), with research and development continuing at TU Delft. Preliminary findings have indicated that the Flying-V is 25\% more aerodynamically efficient than the state-of-the-art Airbus A350. To further reap the benefits of...

Numerical investigation of the wake-diffusion rotor concept

With the growing global utilisation of wind energy, lowering of its levelised cost of energy is pursued. This effort is hindered by wind turbine wakes and their detrimental effects on wind farm profitability. Most currently researched wake mitigation methods are based on wind farm system-level interventions, and there is a research gap on...

Aerodynamics of a 15-MW and a 5-MW Reference Wind Turbine Using Varying Fidelity Tools

The most effective way to decrease the cost of energy of wind turbines is to increase the rotor diameter. Therefore, this calls for the need of aerodynamic research on large wind turbines. This thesis project will tackle the topics addressed by the IEA Wind Task 47 which is focused on the aerodynamic analysis and comparison of the newly proposed...

The assessment of aerodynamic interaction between Ventifoil suction wings: A comparison between a numerical lifting line approach and full-scale RANS simulations

While the awareness of global warming rises, transport over sea remains a large contributor to green house gas emissions. New regulations imposed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) aim to reduce the emission of green house gasses. Consequently, ship owners turn to technological solutions in order to achieve this. The Ventifoil from...

Effect of Chordwise Struts and Misaligned Flow on the Aerodynamic Performance of a Leading-Edge Inflatable Wing

Leading-edge inflatable (LEI) kites use a pressurized tubular frame to structurally support a single skin membrane canopy. The presence of the tubes on the pressure side of the wing leads to characteristic flow phenomena for this type of kite. In this paper, we present steady-state Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations for a LEI...

A Comparative Study to Assess the Accuracy of the Lifting Line Code AWSM for Simulating Winglets on Wind Turbines

Wind turbine power output has grown massively over the past few decades, and this has been achieved in part by increasing the size of rotors. But the size of rotors is now limited by structural constraints as well as space constraints in wind farms. It is therefore important to use other innovative methods to increase wind turbine capacity...

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...

Thermal Turbulence in Variable Property Channel Flows: DNS and RANS

Over the past decades, engineers have focused on a common goal - to reduce emissions by making industrial processes more efficient and by utilizing renewable energy sources. One possibility to reach this goal can be achieved by employing processes with non-ideal fluids, such as fluids at supercritical conditions in refrigeration, heat pump...

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...

Multi-fidelity Co-Kriging Optimization using Hybrid Injected RANS and LES

The computation of complex turbulent flows design optimization processes is currently limited by the lack of accuracy of Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) in massively separated flows and the infeasible cost of multiple Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) evaluations. A novel method is presented, injecting data from LES or other high-fidelity...

An Investigation of the Non-Linear 3D Flow Effects Relevant for Leading Edge Inflatable Kites

The kite power group at TU Delft is currently researching the use of leading edge inflatable (LEI) kites for use in power generation. A thorough understanding of the aeroelastics of these kites is paramount to the development of system simulation models and optimum kite and system designs. The current lack of understanding is therefore seen as a...