Design Exploration of Transonic Airfoils for Natural and Hybrid Laminar Flow Control Applications

What is it about?

The development of low drag and energy-efficient aircraft can pave the way to a zero-emission future using cleaner energy sources. One of the major contributors to drag is skin friction drag, which can be reduced significantly by maximizing the laminar boundary layer over the aircraft wing. Maintaining laminar flow over a swept transonic wing is challenging and required active control of the boundary layer via boundary layer suction. We propose a methodology to integrate the effects of boundary layer suction into airfoil design. A coupled optimization is then performed with a genetic algorithm and fast aerodynamic tools to find optimal solutions with the least total drag by exploring the design space.

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