Experimental Study on Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Stepped-Nose Obstacle

Cakrawala Anang, Umemura Akira

doi:10.2322/tjsass.46.238

Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the aerodynamic characteristics of two-dimensional stepped-nose obstacles. In our previous numerical study on the flow around stepped-nose obstacles at a zero angle of attack, the following favorable properties have been found for such step configuration that the flow separating from the front corners reattaches to the leading edges of the side surfaces. (1) The strong vortices trapped in the step region produce the suction forces acting on the step walls to cancel the drag force acting the front surface. (2) The suppression of large-scale flow separation on the obstacle’s sides reduces not only the suction force acting on the back surface, but also the lateral force fluctuation to a great degree. (3) The resulting net drag coefficient is much smaller than that of square/rectangular obstacles. In the present experimental study, the drag coefficient of stepped-nosed obstacles with various step height and length, at zero angle of attack, was measured to identify the optimum step configuration for large drag reduction. The effect of attack angle on drag, lift and moment coefficients was examined to gain insight into the static and dynamic stability of stepped-nose obstacles. The effect of step configuration on the Strouhal number was also examined. It was found that the stepped nose brought about static stability to the obstacle with a rather large step length-to-height ratio, but neither static nor dynamic stability was derived for the optimal step configuration with maximum drag reduction.

Experimental Study on Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Stepped-Nose Obstacle

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