CONFIGURATION OF A NUMERICAL EXPERIMENT FOR A TEST CASE OF FLOW SIMULATION OVER A NACA 0012 AIRFOIL PROFILE

Volodymyr Otroshchenko

Abstract


This article examines the configuration and execution of a numerical experiment to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics of the NACA 0012 propeller airfoil profile. The relevance of the study is determined by the rapidly increasing requirements for the efficiency of aircraft components, particularly those used in unmanned aerial platforms. Propeller systems are key components of unmanned aerial vehicles, and their characteristics directly affect energy efficiency, payload capacity, and flight endurance. Proper parameter configuration of conducting a numerical experiment on the aerodynamic characteristics of the NACA 0012 airfoil profile makes it possible to obtain detailed information on the flow features around the profile and to optimize the structural parameters of the propeller without the need for costly and time-consuming physical experiments. The object of the study is the NACA 0012 propeller airfoil profile. The subject The subject of the study is the computational grid topology applied to the investigation of the aerodynamic characteristics of the NACA 0012 propeller airfoil. The aim of the work is to substantiate the choice of the turbulence viscosity model and the computational mesh topology, as well as to determine the influence of mesh parameters on the accuracy of the obtained results. The research tasks include the development of a mathematical model in the Ansys Workbench Student software environment and the testing of the following turbulence viscosity models: Shear Stress Transport (SST), k-ω, and BSL EARSM. The models were tested for different computational mesh cell edge lengths, which varied from 25 mm to 30 mm. The study was carried out via a numerical experiment in the Ansys Workbench Student software environment using the CFD method. The results show that the proper selection of computational mesh parameters and the turbulence viscosity model has a significant influence on the accuracy of the mathematical modelling results when compared with the data obtained from a physical experiment. Among the investigated variants, the highest degree of accuracy was demonstrated by the mesh with a cell edge length of 30 mm. At the same time, the investigated turbulent viscosity models generally produced results within an acceptable error range of approximately 5%; however, the SST model yielded the most accurate results. The scientific novelty and practical significance of the work lie in the further development of the methodology for numerical modeling and the execution of test cases for simulating the flow around a propeller airfoil profile under conditions of highly limited computational resources and capabilities, which are typical of educational software environments.


Keywords


numerical experiment, turbulence viscosity model, computational mesh topology, flow modelling, propeller airfoil profile, NACA 0012, CFX, CFD

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.32620/aktt.2026.4sup1.09