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IJMERR 2023 Vol.12(2): 99-106
DOI: 10.18178/ijmerr.12.2.99-106

A Study of Impacts of Airfoil Geometry on the Aerodynamic Performance at Low Reynolds Number

Ahmad A. Alsahlani*, Mohammed Al-SAAD, and Mohammed Al- Mosallam
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq
*Correspondence: Ahmad.mahdi@uobasrah.edu.iq

Manuscript received August 21, 2022; revised September 20, 2022; accepted November 10, 2022.

Abstract—The aerodynamic performance of airfoils has been studied in several studies; however, the performance is highly relying on the airfoil geometry and the flow characteristics such as the flow type (laminar or turbulent) and Reynolds number. This paper focuses on understanding the aerodynamic performance of airfoils in a low-speed environment (low Reynolds number) versus the airfoil geometry. This paper would be a guide to the airfoil design and optimization processes toward the design target under similar flow conditions. Therefore, several parameters of the airfoil geometry, such as maximum thickness, maximum camber, their location, and reflex angle were studied in a low Reynolds number range from 0.3×106 to 0.8×106. Three airfoil parameterizations, NACA 4-digit, PARSEC, and Bezier curve, were utilised to generate the airfoil coordinates for different studied parameters. A two-dimensional aerodynamic solver, XFOIL, was used to evaluate the aerodynamic performance of the airfoils. The results show that varying the airfoil geometry results in a noticeable change in the lift, drag, and moment coefficients. Also, as expected, increasing the Reynolds number has resulted in a good performance.

Keywords—airfoil, low reynolds number, airfoil shape

Cite: Ahmad A. Alsahlani, Mohammed Al-SAAD, and Mohammed Al- Mosallam, "A Study of Impacts of Airfoil Geometry on the Aerodynamic Performance at Low Reynolds Number," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 99-106, March 2023. 

Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.