Aerodynamic Drag and Aeroacoustic Noise Mitigation of Flatback Airfoil With Spanwise Wavy Trailing Edge

AIAA 2015-0993
AIAA SciTech
5-9 January 2015, Kissimmee, Florida
33rd Wind Energy Symposium
Aerodynamic Drag and Aeroacoustic Noise Mitigation of

Flatback Airfoil with Spanwise Wavy Trailing Edge
Seung J. Yang1 and James D. Baeder2

Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD USA, 20740
Span-wise wavy trailing edge designs are newly proposed as ways of reducing
aerodynamic drag and aero-acoustic noise on flatback airfoils for the future wind turbine
blades. The span-wise wavy trailing edges have been designed by modifying the trailing edge
thicknesses of flatback airfoils. Three dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
Downloaded by ROKETSAN MISSLES INC. on January 8, 2015 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/6.2015-0993
simulations have been performed to verify aerodynamic performances and aero-acoustic

behaviors of the proposed wavy trailing edge flatback airfoils. Delayed Detached-Eddy
Simulation (DDES) has been applied to resolve the turbulent boundary layer and detailed
vortex shedding behaviors around airfoils. GPU-accelerated computation has been
conducted to reduce massive computation costs. The effects of wavy trailing edge design
have been studied with two major design factors of wave distribution: wave length and
amplitude. The flow field results and vortex shedding behavior are presented for each
different design case of wavy trailing edge airfoils and compared with typical flatback and
sharp trailing edge airfoils. Potential acoustic noise level of the wavy trailing edge airfoils
have been studied and also discussed comparing with typical flatback airfoil cases. The
tested results have been compared with conventional base drag reduction devices, such as a
split plate, too.
Nomenclature
Cl = lift coefficient
Cd = drag coefficient
Cm = pitching moment coefficient
Cp = pressure coefficient
c = chord
dt = time step
h = height
t = thickness
x = local span-wise position
ymax = maximum trailing edge thickness
ymin = minimum trailing edge thickness
w = wave number
Abbreviations
CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics
DDES Delayed Detached-Eddy Simulation
FVM Finite Volume Method
GPU Graphics Processing Unit
RANS Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes
SA Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model
SPL Sound Pressure Level, dB (reference Pressure: 20 Pa)
TE Trailing Edge
1
Graduate Student, Department of Aerospace Engineering, sjyang@umd.edu, AIAA Student Member.
2
Associate Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, baeder@umd.edu, AIAA Member.
1
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Copyright 2015 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.
I. Introduction
T He most difficult challenge in the modern wind turbine sizing up is developing strong weight resistant blades,
because the weight of blades will increase as a cube of blade length when the blade is enlarged (the cube-law)1.
Therefore a structurally robust blade design is essential to make future larger wind turbines to be feasible. During
the last half decade, to increase structural strength of rotor blades, various design approaches have been considered
in its materials and blade geometries2. One leading idea of future robust blade design is to apply thicker airfoil
geometries to the blade inboard region. Although the thick airfoil design is considered as dispensable for enhancing
inboard (typically about 40% of length from root) strength because of its structural advantages, it accompanies with
risk of leading edge stall onset because of its high thickness to chord (t/c) ratio, and consequently that disadvantage
causes losses of aerodynamic performances and results in turbine power loss. Several artificial treatment devices for
the thick inboard, such as active or passive blade control were suggested so far. The flatback trailing edge design,
proposed as one of the treatment design, is considered a preferred solution, since one can prevent aerodynamic
performance loss with much less manufactural and handling costs without complex blade control system. According
to the previous works, it is found that the early onset of aerodynamic stall of the thick airfoils can be suppressed
with flatback trailing edge design3. However, its blunt trailing edge causes abrupt dynamic pressure drops at the
airfoil behind wake region, so that results in increase of base drag3 4 5. Besides the aerodynamic loss, the flatback
trailing edge design brings another problem in acoustic field. In general case, the strong vortex shed periodically at
both upper and bottom edge of the flatback airfoil trailing edge and forms Karman Vortex streets3. This strong
periodic vortex shedding might act as major source of wind turbine noise, because the shed vortex create massive
pressure disturbance which is major acoustic noise source. The issue of sound noise pollution has been one of major
obstacles to decide locations of wind turbine farms, since the wind turbine noise can be harmful to the households
and living creatures nearby wind farms6. For now, many of recent findings verified that the flatback airfoil noise will
be more harmful to the surroundings, since the noise magnitudes is generally much higher than when we apply
normal sharp trailing edge thick airfoil, especially at the low frequency ranges7. Therefore studies of the
aerodynamic drag and noise reduction method could be a key to make the flatback airfoil design feasible.
To solve the high magnitude - low frequency noise problem of the flatback airfoils, various design modifications
of the flatback airfoil trailing edge have been tried so far8. Since the massive vortex shedding at the trailing edge is
the major source of wind turbine noise, these design modifications mostly focused on preventing vortex evolutions
at the trailing edge. Until now most typical trailing edge vortex prevention methods has been a type of attaching
drag mitigating devices on the trailing edge, such as splitter plates, wedges, serrate plates, and cavities so on8. In fact,
the studies of base drag and noise reduction method already had been conducted in early 1960s, for applications of
blunt based ground vehicles or aero-projectiles9 10. According to these early findings, attaching drag and noise
reduction devices had proved their effectiveness to reduce base drag. However, since the trailing edge vortex
shedding mainly grows along to the blade span direction, span-wise the trailing edge modification without adding
other devices should be more efficient than previous attaching type drag mitigation devices. For this reason, we
propose a new trailing edge shedding vortex mitigation design, which is going to be called as the wavy trailing edge
design. The main idea of the newly proposed design is to modify the trailing edge thicknesses to have sinusoidal
wave distribution in a span-wise direction of blade. The local difference of trailing edge thicknesses will vary the
local camber steepness, and consequently role as a kind of vortex generator. By implementing vortex generators at
the each local position, the span-wise growth of the trailing edge vortex will be reduced effectively. In this research,
we expect the new design brings significant reductions of trailing edge vortex shedding, and noise level with
maintaining good aerodynamic performances.
The current research was performed by computational approach. 3D Delayed Detached-Eddy Simulation (DDES)
with Spalart-Allmaras (S-A) RANS turbulence model that included transition model is performed to solve the flow
field. 5rd order WENO scheme is used for spatial reconstructions and the Diagonal Alternating Direction Implicit
(DADI) scheme with dual time-stepping is used for time marching. All the simulations have been performed with
GPU-accelerated computation environment with using the GPURANS3D in-house solver to handle expensive
computation costs of 3D DDES. In this study, several types of wavy trailing edge designs varying with its wave
shapes have been studied and compared with typical flatback case to figure out how the each wave factors, such as
number of waves and amplitude, will work on the span wise vortex breakdown. The tested aerodynamic
performances and aeroacoustic performances were presented and discussed in following chapters.
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II. Wavy Trailing Edge Design
It is expected span-wise wavy-like modifications of trailing edge will help to prevent generations of large trailing
edge vortex shedding, because the shed vortices near the trailing edge evolve along to the span-wise direction. And
changing trailing edge thickness in span direction must be an effective way to diffuser break the vortex evolving in
same direction while maintaining maximum camber thickness. The idea of wavy trailing edge design is motivated
by these two following vortex generators that the fin leading edge tubercles of humpback whales11 and vortex
generators of airplane wing surface. The fin leading edge tubercles of humpback whales act as a vortex generator
and consequently help its maneuverability by generating small vortices from the leading edge of fins. This bio-
inspired idea was already introduced to the wind turbine blade application as blade tubercle design of outboard
leading edge in some of previous research trials12. Inspired from this idea, a wavy geometry on the trailing edge of
the flatback airfoil is proposed in this paper.
The proposed wavy trailing edge designs are presented in Figure 1. All the wavy trailing edge geometries in the
current research were developed based on the FB3500-1750 flatback airfoil coordinates, which trailing edge
thickness is 17.5% of its chord length. The wavy trailing edge designs were generated by varying trailing edge
thickness along span-wise direction with sinus wave distribution with certain wave factors. For the current paper, all
the wavy trailing edge designs have been divided with two different groups along to their crest-trough depth and
their wave number. All the airfoil geometries in the first group distinguished by their minimum thickness, and their
minimum trailing edge thickness is 8.75% of the chord length, while the second group has minimum 4.62% of the
chord length. The 8.75% of chord length is around 1/2 of the full flatback thickness (17.5% of C), and 4.62% of
chord length is around 1/4 thickness of the full flatback trailing edge. Both of the groups have 2 different wave
geometries respectively varied with number of wave crests: as 4 wave crests per span distance of 1/2 chord, and 2
wave crests per same span-wise length. The details of wavy trailing edge designs are described in Figure 2.
The wavy distributions at each trailing edge have been generated by a modified cosine formula, presented in Eq.
(1) and (2) where is wave number of geometries. In the formula, x and l represent span-wise location and
length of total wave while y , represent maximum and minimum height from chord line respectively.
y y y Eq. (1)

local thickness cos 1 Eq. (2)
Figure 1 Proposed wavy trailing edge design examples
Figure 2 Wave periods & magnitudes of proposed wavy trailing edge designs
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III. Numerical and Computational Methodologies
The current research is performed by computational approach. All the cases were calculated by using the GPU
based in-house RANS (Raynolds Averaged Navier Stokes) - LES (Large Eddy Simulation) code, GPURANS3D.
Delayed Detached-Eddy Simulation (DDES) was performed to achieve accurate stall prediction and vortex shedding
at the airfoil behind wake region. GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) based computation was conducted to reduce high
computational cost of DDES.
A. Laminar-Turbulent Transition Modelling

The transition model with the S-A turbulence model13 was used to predict locations of laminar
turbulent transition on the airfoil surface boundary layers. The laminar turbulent transition model was originally
developed by R. B. Langtry and F. R. Menter14 for the SST k two equation turbulence model15. However, since
their model had been developed to be applied for 2-D streamwise transition, it isnt adequate to capture span-wise
cross flow effects on 3-D wings. For the reason, the original transition model had been modified by the previous
research member, S. Medida et al.14 to be used for the S-A one equation turbulence model16, and had been improved
to be capable to capture the crossflow transition in 3-D airfoil flow fields. The improved transition model had been
validated in the previous works, compared with S809 airfoil experimental data for the transition onset behaviors.
B. Delayed Detached-Eddy Simulation (DDES)

RANS-LES hybrid method is a preferable to apply airfoil separation problem, since one can achieve both
solution fidelity and computational efficiency by using it. The Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) has been broadly
used for airfoil flow simulations, because of its simplicity. However, the DES tends to activate LES mode too earlier
depending on the stream-wise or span-wise aspect ratios of the near wall grids, especially in thick boundary layers.
This tendency can cause over-estimated early separation on the airfoil surfaces. In the present research, the recent
developed RANS-LES hybrid method, DDES, developed by P. R. Spalart17, has been used to capture both well
attached boundary layer and large separation, simply modifying the length scale definition18.
To solve boundary layer, RANS turbulence modeling is employed while the LES is used to resolve the large
eddies in the separation region. The S-A turbulence model with -SA transition model has been used for
RANS turbulence modeling.
C. GPURANS3D
The current computations have been conducted using the GPURANS3D flow solver which was developed by the
University of Maryland. The GPURANS3D is a GPU-based FVM (Finite Volume Method) flow solver which also
employing the Curvilinear, Structured, Compressible RANS-LES solver. The GPURANS3D was coded in a public
release version of CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) to fit in GPU-accelerated computation19 20. Until
the recent days, the best solution to handling high cost CFD simulations was a physically parallelized computation.
However more recently, GPU computations have been receiving attention and developing as an alternative of multi-
clustered CPU machines, since one can have even more job threads with one high end GPU machine than the multi-
clustered CPU machines. According to recent benchmark tests, by using GPU computation, the computation speed
can be accelerated up to 30 times or even more than 50 times comparing with typical CPU machines. In this research,
the Nvidia Tesla K20m GPU cards in the Deep-Thought II computer cluster (located in the University of Maryland)
were used. The Deep-Thought II high performance computing cluster has 40 GPU nodes, and each node has dual
Nvidia Tesla K20m GPU cards. The Nvidia Tesla K20 GPU card is featured 2496 processor cores (processor core
clock: 706 MHz), total 5GB board memory (memory clock: 2.6 GHz, bandwidth: 208 GB/sec).
IV. Case Studies

The key topic in the current research is reducing shed vortex strength at the behind of trailing edge. To figure out
feasibility of newly proposed wavy trailing edge design, the typical flatback and sharp trailing edge airfoils have
been tested as base-line cases, while the various wavy trailing edge designs have been tested.
Geometries of base-line cases; FB3500-1750 airfoil (trailing edge thickness ~ 17.5% of C) was tested as a full
thickness flatback airfoil. The FB3500-0462 airfoil (trailing edge thickness ~ 4.62% of C) was tested as a sharp
trailing edge airfoil case. The coordinates of FB3500 airfoil series are presented in Figure 3.
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A. Test Cases
All the case studies had been performed in a same in-flow condition. In-flow Mach number was set as 0.3 with
Reynolds number 666,000 in the standard atmospheric condition. The case studies consist of three main categories
as: Case 1 Base-line / Case 2 Number of waves / Case 3 Crest-Trough depths. To verify characteristics of typical
flatback and thick airfoil behind wake, FB3500-1750 and FB3500-0462 airfoils were chosen for base-line case
(Case 1). Effects of wavy trailing edge were studied in the Case 2 and 3. Because the shapes (or patterns) of wave
distribution may affect to the trailing edge wakes, test cases were set up as two separate groups considering
difference of wave numbers and wave magnitudes. In the test case 2, effect of wave number was tested. To verify
this, 2 different shapes of airfoil segments were constructed with 4 and 8 crests per 1 chord length respectively, and
also with same crest-trough depth (1/4 of full flatback). In the test case 3, effect of wave amplitude was tested. To
perform the tests, 2 different airfoil segments their maximum crest-trough depths are 1/2 of full flatback and 1/4 of
full flatback were generated with same number of wave per 1 chord length in span-wise axis. Most of the test cases
had been performed in ranges of angle of attack 0 to 20, and some of cases had been conducted only in high angle
of attack 8 to 20 degrees. All the simulations had been conducted in time-accurate with time step 0.001 sec. All test
cases are tabulated in Table 1. (cf. The FB3500-0462 airfoil coordinates was formed by the authors based on
FB3500 series)
Figure 3 Coordinates of FB3500 series airfoils
Table 1 Wavy trailing edge design test cases

# of crests / Time steps AOA
TE type CrestTrough CrestTrough depth
chord (sec) (deg)
17.5% of C (full flat
- -
TE)
Case 1. Base-line
4.62% of C (sharp
- -
TE)
Case 2. Number of 4 1/4 of full flatback TE
17.5% - 8.75% of C 0.001 0 20
waves 8 thickness
1/2 of full flatback TE
17.5% - 4.62% of C
Case 3. Crest-Trough thickness
4
depths 1/4 of full flatback TE
17.5% - 8.75% of C
thickness
B. Meshes
Computational grids were constructed using the O-grid generation method. 271 grid points were planted in
wrapping around the airfoil surface direction, and 141 grid points were set in normal direction to the surface. 61 grid
points were evenly distributed in the span-wise direction as shown as in Figure 4. Total 271 141 61 ~ 2.33
million grid points were used for each airfoil segment computation. The total grid points of all the different type of
airfoils segments were set up as same. The most concerning region in the research is near the trailing edge and
downstream where the high magnitude vortex is shed, and the second most concerning region is upper surface
descending region from the location of maximum camber to the trailing edge where the adverse pressure gradient
occur. For this reason, 104 grid points of total 271 points in wrap around surface direction were placed at the trailing
edge blunt surface, and 102 grid points were implemented both upper and bottom surface near the trailing edge, to
maintain much higher grid resolution at the most focused area. The overall size of grid has around 50c in normal
direction to the airfoil surface, and 0.5c in span direction. 141 grid points of normal to the surface directions were
stretched for the computational efficiency and accuracy. Near the surface, the grid resolution was set as y/c ~ 5.0
(y+ ~ 0.8).
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Figure 4 Mesh Descriptions
V. Results and Discussion

Tested aerodynamic and acoustic characteristics are presented and discussed for the base-line cases (FB3500-
1750:full flatback, FB3500-0462:sharp trailing edge) and the wavy-trailing edge cases, respectively. The factors of
aerodynamic performances, such as lift coefficient (Cl), drag coefficient (Cd), pressure coefficient (Cp) values were
also compared with experiment data. The experimental data compared here, had been performed at U.C.DAVIS
wind tunnel and was published by Baker & van Dam3. In the experiment, they performed wind tunnel experiment to
the FB3500 flatback airfoil series (1750; 17.5% of C / 0875; 8.75% of C / 0050; 0.5% of C), with expecting free
transition and fixed transition cases respectively. They conducted the wind tunnel tests with Re = 333k & 666k, but
only Re=666k and FB3500-1750 / 0050 cases were referenced in here.
A. 2D Airfoil Simulations
Before discussing characteristics of wavy trailing edge airfoils, brief exploration of the aerodynamic
characteristics of flatback airfoils would be considerable. To clarify the aerodynamic behaviors of the flatback
airfoils and, also validate the in-house flow solver, DDES simulations had been performed in 2D computational
domain and compared with the experimental results stated above. The flow conditions in this case were Mach
number, 0.3, Reynolds number, 666,000, and all the 2-D simulations had been conducted using the OVERTURNS
2D in-house solver. 2-D simulation results are presented in figure 5 and figure 6. For the first features, figure 5
shows that stream line paths and density distributions near the trailing edge wake regions of a) FB3500-0050 (sharp
TE) and b) FB3500-1750 (flatback TE) with flow angle of attack 8 degree. In figure 5, flow separation occurs in the
downstream of the sharp trailing edge airfoil even in the moderate angle of attack (8). In the contrast, the
downstream flows are well attached in the flatback airfoil compared with conventional sharp trailing edge airfoil, so
that shows the flatback design effectively prevent flow separations in thick airfoil applications. However, in the
different side, the strong Karman vortex shedding occurs in the wake region of the flatback airfoil while only small
disturbance waves appear in the sharp trailing edge case. This strong vertex shedding in flatback airfoils causes
increase of aerodynamic drag generation, and it was verified and showed already in the previous experiment.
2-D simulations had been performed in several angle of attack conditions between 4 - 20 for both FB3500-1750,
0462, and 0050. The aerodynamic performances are presented in figure 6. The lift coefficient trends along the angle
of attack changes are agreed well with free transition cases of experiment for both FB3500-1750 / 0050.
6
Figure 5 High intensity fluctuations near the behind of the flatback airfoil trailing edge.
Figure 6 Aerodynamic performances results of FB3500 airfoil series performed by 2-D DDES with laminar -
turbulence transition model.
However, in the flatback cases, the drag coefficients are estimated higher than free transition data of
experimental measurements, especially for very higher angle of attack conditions, such as 20. Also, comparing with
drag estimations of sharp trailing edge cases, only 2-D flatback drag predictions are higher than the experimental
measurement. This overestimation of drag in 2-D simulation must be related with span-wise growth of trailing edge
vortex shedding, and might be improved by having 3-D computational domain. In the simulation, FB3500-0462
cases have been added to figure out the aerodynamic behaviors of 1/4 flatback design as a reference to the wavy
trailing edge designs. Because its camber thickness and trailing edge thickness isnt much larger than FB3500-0050,
the overall aerodynamic performance isnt much different with the sharp trailing edge airfoil. According to the
results, it is expected that the aerodynamic behavior, for instance, separation onset location might be similar to the
thick and sharp trailing edge airfoil at the trough locations when we have 1/4 thickness pave wavy trailing edge
design.
B. Base-line Cases
3-D DDES simulations have been performed to the FB3500-1750 / 0462 airfoil wing segments to figure out
aerodynamic behaviors of base-line cases. Again, all the simulations in the paper have been performed under flow
conditions with the Reynolds number, 666,000, and flight Mach number, 0.3.
To explore the behaviors of behind wake flow, 3-D overviews of each airfoil simulations for moderate (8) and
high (16) angle of attack conditions are presented in the figure 7. In the figure 7 (b) and (d), the sharp trailing edge
airfoil (FB3500-0462) experiences massive separation with angle of attack, 16 while the flatback airfoil still
operates with well attached flow even in the angle of attack, 16 (see figure 7 (a), (c)). Meanwhile, strong coherent
trailing edge vortices shed along the span direction from the trailing edge for both 8, 16 of angle of attack in the
flatback airfoil, and also sharp trailing edge airfoil although its strength is small.
7
Figure 7 3-D overviews of behind wakes behaviors of base-line cases: contours of vorticity magnitude (a)
FB3500-1750, aoa 8 (b) FB3500-0462, aoa 8 (c) FB3500-1750, aoa 16 (d) FB3500-0462, aoa 16
Figure 8 Density distributions of base-line cases: (a) FB3500-1750, aoa 8 (b) FB3500-0462, aoa 8 (c) FB3500-
1750, aoa 16 (d) FB3500-0462, aoa 16
Figure 9 Vorticity magnitudes of base-line cases at the middle location in the wing segment: (a) FB3500-1750,
aoa 8 (b) FB3500-0462, aoa 8 (c) FB3500-1750, aoa 16 (d) FB3500-0462, aoa 16
8
Figure 10 Iso-vorticity magnitudes of base-line cases: (a) FB3500-1750, aoa 8 (b) FB3500-0462, aoa 8 (c)
FB3500-1750, aoa 16 (d) FB3500-0462, aoa 16
Figure 11 Aerodynamic performances of base-line cases: (a) lift coefficient trend to the angle of attack (b) Cl
versus Cd for angle of attack 8 - 20
The trailing edge vortex shedding is well captured in the results presented in from the figure 8 through to the
figure 10. In the figure 8-9, the strong vortices shed from the trailing edge. It is important to recall the strong shed
vortices will act on the airfoil surrounding flow as high intensity pressure disturbances, and also can be a major
source of the base drag increase. The span-wise coherency of these trailing edge vortices are well described in the
figure 10. Interestingly in the figure 10(d), the intensity of shed vorticity is even stronger than the case of the
flatback airfoil. In this case, the shear layer near the trailing edge region of bottom surface is stretched up the almost
1/4 chord downstream, and results in strong vortex cores while merged with separated flow on the upper surface.
9
The aerodynamic performances of base-line cases are compared with experimental results and 2-D
computational results in the figure 11. The lift performances are identical to the free transition cases of experiment
with most angle of attack conditions. Although the lift values are measured somewhat higher than both experimental
data and 2-D simulation results, drag measurements are much improved by performing 3-D simulation.
Figure 12 3-D overviews of behind wakes behaviors of wave magnitude cases: contours of vorticity magnitude
(a) FB3500-1750, aoa 8 (b) FB3500-0462, aoa 8 (c) 1/2 flatback4cyc/C, aoa 8 (d) 1/4 flatback-4cyc/C, aoa 8
C. Wavy Trailing Edge Design: Wave Magnitudes

Aerodynamic characteristics of wavy trailing edge airfoils are studied and its effectiveness has been discussed
with comparing to the base-line cases in the following chapters. Since the modified designs have sinus variances in
their span-wise thicknesses, the trailing edge vortex shedding may behave depending with the periodical cycles of
the span-wise airfoil thicknesses variances. By the idea, it is reasonable that assuming the mode shape of the waves
on the trailing edge is the major factor of the vortex shedding behavior control. The two key factors of determining
the trailing edge wave mode shapes are the wave magnitude (the depth between the wave crest and trough), and the
wave length (the length between the wave crests). Firstly, the effect of the magnitude of wave on the airfoil behind
wake is discussed in this chapter, and the effect of the wave length on the design will be discussed in the following
chapter.
To clarify the effect of wave magnitude, FB3500-1750 airfoil (trailing edge thickness ~ 17.5% of chord) was
tested as a full thickness flatback airfoil, while the FB3500-0462 airfoil (trailing edge thickness ~ 4.62% of chord)
was tested as a sharp trailing edge airfoil case as base-line cases. The two different types of wavy trailing edge
airfoils have been tested and compared with FB3500-17500 airfoil. 3D DDES has been performed in the range of
angle of attack 8 - 20 with Mach number 0.3. 3-D overviews of the different wave magnitude case results have
been presented in the figure 12. In the figure, it is clear that the strong span-wise vortex shedding occurs at the
flatback trailing edge, but in the meanwhile, the shed vortices are broken to the smaller and irregular wakes at the
both 1/2 and 1/4 flatback wavy trailing edges. Comparing the two different magnitude wavy trailing edge airfoils
each other, the strong vorticities generated from the bottom surface shear layers are stretched down to around 1/3
chord downstream from the trailing edge, and formed local vortex cores locally in the tailing edge of 1/2 thickness
airfoil case, while the wakes behind the 1/4 thickness wavy trailing edge airfoil has no longer periodic or regular
behaviors. This is shown in the figure 15 and 17 more distinct.
The aerodynamic performance values are presented in the figure 13. From the results, the 1/2 flatback airfoil
works with higher lift than the FB3500-0462 airfoil, and much lower drag than FB3500-1750 airfoil at moderate
angle of attack ranges, such as 8 and 12, especially for angle of attack 8. Since the Cl value of 1/2 flatback airfoil
located around median value between full flatback and sharp trailing edge airfoil while the Cd values of 1/2 flatback
is very closed to the value of sharp trailing edge airfoil, it is reasonable to state that one can achieve both thrust
benefit of flatback airfoil while maintaining around 3 times smaller drag out at the moderate angle of attack
condition. However, at near the angle of attack 16, it tends to be massive separation onset and results in huge
aerodynamic losses. In the other hand, the 1/4 flatback airfoil, which has much deeper pave depth, is easily get in to
be stalled, even with the moderate condition, such as angle of attack 12. However, it is interesting that the 1/4
flatback airfoil shows much higher lift performance than other stalled airfoil, such as FB3500-0462, with similar
order of drag with sharp trailing edge airfoil at the highest angle of attack, 20. At the angle of attack 20, the lift
values of two wavy trailing edge airfoils are almost equivalent, but the drag of 1/4 flatback airfoil is almost 2/3 of
drag value of 1/2 flatback airfoil. This reduced drag can be explained with iso-vorticity magnitude contours
10
presented in figure 15. In the figure, the trailing edge vortex of 1/2 flatback airfoil (see figure 15(d)) is shed from the
bottom side trailing edge, and stretched to the downstream, and in the next finally forms span-wise coherent vortex
core at the airfoil base, while the 1/4 flatback airfoil still shows irregular vortex shedding at the 20 (see figure15(h)).
This vortex behavior of 1/2 flatback airfoil at the angle of attack 20 is somewhat similar to the strong vortex
shedding behaviors presented in the figure 10. The detailed performance values in this simulation are tabulated in
the Table 2.
To explore inside of complex vortex generation region 5 y-cut contours are provided in figure 17 to verify span-
wise vortex break up processes with in detail. The local positions of 5 y-cut slides are described in figure 16 with
presenting y-cut slide views of base-line cases. In the figure 17, both cases in the right and the left have been
calculated with the angle of attack, 8. Since the both cases dont have singular separation, strong shear layers
stretches both up and bottom surface near the trailing edge for both 1/2 and 1/4 flatback cases (see figure 17 (a1),
(a5), (b1), (b5)). However, after leaving the trailing edge, the vortex shed with many small fragments irregularly in
the contrast with base-line cases presented in the figure 16. If comparing 1/2 and 1/4 flatback airfoils each other,
more irregularities are observed in the 1/4 flatback case than 1/2 flatback case. By comparing contours in the figure
17 (a1) and (b1), more drastic changes of geometry generate more random vortex shedding at the trailing edge.
Figure 13 Aerodynamic performances of wave magnitude cases: (a) lift coefficient trend to the angle of attack
(b) Cl versus Cd for angle of attack 8 - 20
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Figure 14 Vorticity magnitude contour lines of wave magnitude cases, aoa 8: (a) FB3500-1750 at the mid
span location (b) FB3500-0462 at the mid span location (c) 1/2 flatback-4cyc/C at the crest (d) 1/2 flatback-
4cyc/C at the trough (e) 1/4 flatback-4cyc/C at the crest (f) 1/4 flatback-4cyc/C at the trough
12
Figure 15 Iso-vorticity magnitudes: (a)(d) 1/2 flatback-4cyc/C, aoa 8 20 in order of alphabet, (e)-(h) 1/4
flatback-4cyc/C, aoa8-20 in order of alphabet
Figure 16 Descriptions of slide cutting planes: (a) locations of x-cut slides of FB3500-1750, 1st 0.8/C from
the leading edge, 2nd 1.15/C from the leading edge (b) locations of x-cut slides of FB3500-0050, 1st 0.8/C
from the leading edge, 2nd 1.15/C from the leading edge (c) 5 different locations of y-cut slides (d) vorticity
magnitude contour in y-cut at y=0 and airfoil downstream, FB3500-1750 (d) vorticity magnitude contour in y-
cut at y=0 and airfoil downstream, FB3500-0462
13
Figure 17 Top views of airfoil behind wake vorticity magnitudes (y-cut): (a) 1/2 flatback-4cyc/C (b) 1/4
flatback-4cyc/C (1 5, y-cut slides top to bottom surface, see figure 16(c) in detailed locations)
D. Wavy Trailing Edge Design: Wave length

The second major factor of design shape, considering in this chapter is the wave length. The length of wave in
the current study was defined a distance between the crest and the next crest. To be easy to tag the type of the wave
length difference of the each airfoil, the wave length was normalized by chord length, and called with number of
paves cycles in 1 chord length, for examples 8 paves cycles per 1 chord length (8cyc/C) or 4 paves cycles per 1
chord length (4cyc/C). Since the 1/4 flatback airfoil shows more dramatic vortex breakup performance comparing
with the 1/2 thickness, the 1/4 thickness is considered in this chapter. The 8 wave cycles per 1 chord and previous 4
wave cycles per 1 chord airfoils were tested. The results in this chapter also calculated in the range of angle of attack
8-20 and Re = 666k with flight Mach number 0.3. Both 8cyc/C and 4cyc/C airfoils generate small pieces of wakes,
and break the strong vortex shedding of the flatback airfoil. The detailed aerodynamic performances are tabulated in
the Table 2.
The 3D overviews of tested flow fields are provided in the figure 18. In the 8cyc/C airfoil case, the vortex break
up behavior looks similar to the 4cyc/C case, but in the detail it is more vigorous but tends to be more stream-wise
stretching compared to the base-line cases and 4cyc/C case. However, in the 4cyc/C case, the vorticity shows
completely irregular shapes. Vigorous, but more regular trailing edge vortex shedding on the 8cyc/C affects to the
aerodynamic performance sequentially. The aerodynamic performances of the wave length cases are presented in the
figure 19. At the most of angle of attack (8-16), both two wavy designs doesnt work with benefits because of their
drastic changes of thickness, but the 4cyc/C airfoil shows slightly better performances with both Cl, Cd
measurements comparing to the 8 cyc/C airfoil. This tendency could be explained with detailed vorticity magnitude
14
contours presented in the figure 20 and 21. In the figure 20 vorticity evolutions are much vigorous in the 8cyc/C
cases comparing to the 4cyc/C cases. Also, at the high angle of attack condition, such as 16, 20, few of strong
freestream-wise vortex strings are observed with 8cyc/C wavy trailing edge airfoil. This flow stream-wise vortex
string also can be found in the y-cut vorticity magnitude contours presented in figure 21. In the figure 21 (b2) and
(b3), the stream-wise vortex strings are evolved from the each wave paves, and not eager to progress to the span
direction, because of theres not enough physical spaces with span direction between the strings. Thus, the 8cyc/C is
seems to be too dense and narrow to generate irregular vortex breakups.
Figure 18 3-D overviews of behind wakes behaviors of wave length cases: contours of vorticity magnitude (a)
FB3500-1750, aoa 8 (b) FB3500-0462, aoa 8 (c) 1/4 flatback4cyc/C, aoa 8 (d) 1/4 flatback-8cyc/C, aoa 8
Figure 19 Aerodynamic performances of wave length cases: (a) lift coefficient trend to the angle of attack (b)
Cl versus Cd for angle of attack 8 - 20
15
Figure 200 Iso-vorticity magnitudes: (a)(d) 1/4 flatback-4cyc/C, aoa 8 20 in order of alphabet, (e)-(h) 1/4
flatback-8cyc/C, aoa8-20 in order of alphabet
16
Figure 21 Top views of airfoil behind wake vorticity magnitudes (y-cut): (a) 1/4 flatback-4cyc/C (b) 1/4
flatback-8cyc/C (1 5, y-cut slides top to bottom surface, see figure 16(c) in detailed locations)
17
Table 2 Aerodynamic performance results of wavy trailing edge airfoils
Cl Cd Cm AOA (deg)
FB3500-1750 1.5413 0.1180 -0.1932
FB3500-0462 1.2762 0.0306 -0.1161
1/2 flatback Wavy - 4cyc/c 1.3874 0.0413 -0.1553 8
1/4 flatback Wavy - 4cyc/c 1.2113 0.0486 -0.1246
FB3500-1750 2.0583 0.1241 -0.2170
FB3500-0462 1.5250 0.0506 -0.1045
1.6044 0.0628 -0.1273 12
1/2 flatback Wavy - 4cyc/c

FB3500-1750 2.5672 0.1130 -0.2322
FB3500-0462 1.6270 0.1027 -0.1087
FB3500-1750 2.2387 0.2839 -0.1523
FB3500-0462 1.6131 0.1829 -0.1113
E. Aero-acoustic behaviors
The acoustic noise behavior of the newly proposed wavy trailing edge airfoil has been studied briefly.
The relation with trailing edge vortex shedding behaviors and flatback airfoil noise emission level has been revealed
by previous researches7. Thus in the current work, the 1/2 flatback-4cyc/C wavy TE airfoil is selected for the very
first step, since the 1/2 flatback-4cyc/C airfoil has been proved its aerodynamic benefit in the moderate angle of
attack condition. It is expected the vortex breakdown with wavy trailing edge design will mitigate mean pressure
noise emitted from the trailing edge of the flatback airfoil. All the inflow conditions are same with other previous
simulation cases and the angle of attack, 8 has been set. The acoustic noise of air flow field can be measured with
the Sound Pressure Level (unit: dB) of the given flow field. The six measurement points are selected at the 1 chord
length below of the trailing edge, and 3 chord distance below from the trailing edge respectively. The other 4
measurement points are set as 1/2 chord distance away in stream-wise direction from the first two points. The details
of measurement locations are described in the figure 22. The equation to transfer the local pressure fluctuation to the
sound pressure level is presented in Eq.3.
SPL dB 10 log Eq. 3
The measured sound pressure levels are presented in the Table 3. The pressure fluctuation data in the flow field
has been collected for 1 sec period with 1 kHz sampling rate. For the full flatback airfoil, the mean noise emission
was measured as up to 124 dB, while the FB3500-0462 airfoil emits only 90 dB. The mean noise emission with 1/2
flatback wavy trailing edge was measured as 103 dB. It is around 20 dB of noise reduction which actually very
18
closed to the noise level of the FB3500-0462. Even if it is only simple case study, this result might be encouraging
to the study of the wavy trailing edge design.
Table 3 Measured acoustic noise emissions

Mean SPL (dB) Cl Cd Cm
FB3500-1750 124 1.5413 0.1180 -0.1932
FB3500-0462 90 1.2762 0.0306 -0.1161
1/2 flatback-4cyc/C 103 1.3874 0.0413 -0.1553
Figure 22 Pressure history measurement locations
VI. Conclusion
The wavy trailing edge designs are proposed as a newly attempted drag mitigation method of the flatback airfoils.
The simulation results of wavy type of trailing edges shows effective drag mitigations for moderate angle of attacks,
however early stall onset was also observed with drastic wave depth airfoil geometry. In the contrast, after the stall
onset, highest angle of attack, 20, 1/4 flatback-4cyc/C airfoil shows better aerodynamic performance compare to
the sharp trailing edge airfoils and better drag generation compare to the full flatback airfoil. This can allow the
wavy trailing edge performs in the high angle of attack region with not losing too much design performances. The
reason of the wavy trailing edge breaks the vortex shedding effectively can be thought the span-wise thickness
differences make different wake flows at each span-wise locations and cut the grows of vortex along to span wise
trailing edge. By testing few different cases along the wave shape of the trailing edge, it found too drastic paves and
too narrow allocation of waves per chord should be avoid to have effective drag mitigation airfoil.
References
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Aerodynamic Drag and Aeroacoustic Noise Mitigation of Flatback Airfoil With Spanwise Wavy Trailing Edge

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AIAA 2015-0993

Aerodynamic Drag and Aeroacoustic Noise Mitigation of

Seung J. Yang1 and James D. Baeder2

simulations have been performed to verify aerodynamic performances and aero-acoustic

Figure 1 Proposed wavy trailing edge design examples

A. Laminar-Turbulent Transition Modelling

B. Delayed Detached-Eddy Simulation (DDES)

IV. Case Studies

Figure 3 Coordinates of FB3500 series airfoils

Table 1 Wavy trailing edge design test cases

Figure 4 Mesh Descriptions

V. Results and Discussion

C. Wavy Trailing Edge Design: Wave Magnitudes

D. Wavy Trailing Edge Design: Wave length

1/2 flatback Wavy - 4cyc/c

Table 3 Measured acoustic noise emissions

Figure 22 Pressure history measurement locations

Meeting & Exhibit, Reno, NV, Jan 1992.

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