Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132

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Aerospace Science and Technology

www.elsevier.com/locate/aescte

Review

Aerodynamic technologies to improve aircraft performance

A. Abbas a , J. de Vicente b , E. Valero b,∗
a
Airbus Spain, Paseo John Lennon, Getafe, Madrid, Spain
b
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, School of Aeronautics, Plaza Cardenal Cisneros, 3, Madrid, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An Air Transport System has become an indispensable part of Europe’s economic infrastructure. The Com-
Received 31 July 2012 mercial Aeronautics Sector is well aware that it has to find an acceptable balance between the constant
Received in revised form 11 October 2012 fierce competitive pressures upon it and the public’s expectations of cheaper fares but reduced environ-
Accepted 24 October 2012
mental impact including community noise around airports and global warming. In order to achieve such
Available online 30 October 2012
a balance in the future, a strategy is required for competitive excellence dedicated to meeting society’s
Keywords: needs.
Aerodynamic efficiency The realization of this vision cannot be achieved without significant technology breakthroughs in the
Flow control area of aerodynamics and other disciplines such as materials and structures. Improved aerodynamic de-
Drag reduction signs and the introduction of new aerodynamic technologies should play not only a key role in improving
Innovative configurations aircraft performance but, also, contribute strongly to product cost and operability. Substantial R&T explo-
Flow separation technologies ration and development require to be conducted in order to provide the required technologies.
In this work, a review of those technologies which show a potential to deliver breakthrough improve-
ments in the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft is shown. The focus of this report is on new aircraft
configurations to reduce induced drag and noise, laminar and turbulent drag reduction technologies and
flow control devices, which aims to improve the performance of the airplane under separated flow con-
ditions of unsteady nature, and to reduce the complex high-lift devices. Most of these works have been
exposed in previous KATnet conferences (Key Aerodynamic Technologies for Aircraft Performance Im-
provement), although a general overview of the current status of these technologies is included.
© 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
2. Aircraft configuration technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
2.1. Blended wing body (BWB) and boundary layer ingestion (BLI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
2.2. High aspect ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
2.3. Engine concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
2.4. Forward swept wings (FSW) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
3. Drag reduction technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
3.1. Drag reduction by extended laminar flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
3.1.1. Laminar flow technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.1.2. Laminar flow on nacelles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.1.3. Hybrid laminar flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
3.1.4. Alternative laminar flow technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.2. Turbulent skin friction reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4. Separation control technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4.1. Passive flow control devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4.2. Active flow control devices (AFC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.2.1. Blowing method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
4.2.2. Vortex generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.3. Other applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5. System and certification issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.1. Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.2. Performance and flight handling characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.3. Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.4. Industrial issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

1270-9638/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
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 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132 101

6. Implications to aerodynamic tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

6.1. Computational fluid dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.2. Wind tunnel testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
7. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

ing a communication platform for all aircraft disciplines concerned

directly or indirectly with aircraft performance improvement.
Within KATnet, the original environmental objectives were
translated into 10 different aerodynamic objectives (Table 1) which
were supported by sixteen design concepts (Table 2).
The necessary technology developments to fulfill these design
concepts requires considerable changes in new aircraft configura-
tions; research in cruise drag; and flow control.

• New aircraft configurations.

Preliminary design studies of New or Non-Conventional config-
urations have shown that a step change in cruise L/D and noise
Fig. 1. Presentation of FUSIM project (Sept. 2008, Flight Physics, AIRBUS).
are possible but that step is only about half that required.
Therefore, it will be necessary to investigate new technolo-
1. Introduction gies which could be applied to such configurations and which
might deliver the additional improvements in performance re-
The European society’s increasing environmental awareness has quired to meet the target.
been present always in the aeronautical community; industry; and • Cruise drag.
research centers. This has had a definite influence in the way they To deliver the required step change in cruise drag, the focus of
foresee the aircraft of the future. In this regard, the ACARE Vision future research and development efforts must be on technolo-
for 2020, a Group of Renowned Personalities in the aeronautical gies aimed at delaying laminar to turbulent boundary layer
field, formulated a clear set of requirements for civil transport transition and at manipulating turbulent flow structures close
aircraft operation so that the following specific goals could be to the aircraft surface. The timescales involved in maturing
achieved: these technologies, particularly the ability to manipulate tur-
bulent flow structures, are extremely aggressive and carry a
• A five-fold reduction in accidents. high risk.
• Halving perceived aircraft noise. • Flow control.
• A 50% cut in CO2 emissions per passenger-km. Flow control technology describes a variety of techniques by
• An 80% cut in NOx emissions. which aerodynamic performance can be enhanced to levels
beyond those which can achieved by changes to the exter-
• An air traffic system capable of handling 16 million flights a
nal shape alone. The change in aerodynamic performance may
year.
take the form of enhanced lift; reduced drag; controlled un-
• 99% of all flights within 15 minutes of timetable.
steadiness; and reduced noise or delayed transition. Alterna-
tively, benefits for the same levels of performance may be
Although undoubtedly important, an additional secondary ob-
accrued through reduced system complexity; less weight; less
jective is the reduction of the enormous dependence of the fuel
maintenance or reduced life cycle costs.
prices in the final DOC (Direct Operating Cost) of a typical long
In addition to the work on flow control technologies, work on
range aircraft. To give an idea, a Brent Crude price rise from 1.5
reducing aircraft weight including high lift and other control
to 4 dollars per gallon supposes a 53% increase in the DOC’s fuel
surfaces is of prime importance since this has a direct ef-
price. fect on fuel burn through reducing overall aircraft weight. This
Most of these goals have a direct impact on the aircraft’s aero- means that technologies to control separation must be devel-
dynamic performance, mainly on aerodynamic technologies for a oped also.
more effective, environmentally friendly air transport system. The
aeronautical industry is aware that these objectives can not be Besides the environmental goals, other major objectives are the
achieved only with improvements in the current “standards” con- reduction of lead time and the provision of robust solutions with
figurations (Fig. 1). A step change in performance is necessary, improved quality. In that context, it is important to exploit any op-
and this must be accomplished through new breakthrough aero- portunity provided by enhanced or new classes of tools such as
dynamic technologies. e.g. high fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and power-
In this context and financed by the European Commission, the ful High Performance Computing (HPC) capabilities. Also, improved
European Coordination Action KATnet I and II (Key Aerodynamic wind tunnel technology provided by new measurement techniques
Technologies for Aircraft Performance Improvement) were con- (e.g. Pressure Sensitive Paint) or model material and manufactur-
ceived. KATnet’s main objective was to support the ACARE’s global ing processes must be exploited.
strategic approach. This was achieved by the development of a KATnet has served as a forum to expose the technology ad-
common RTD strategy in certain technology areas, and by provid- vances of both industry and academia in the above mentioned
areas. A series of conferences and workshop were organized with
great success. These conferences exposed the most recent advances
* Corresponding author. of the main aeronautic stakeholders and showed the industry’s
E-mail address: eusebio.valero@upm.es (E. Valero). growing interest in these topics. This review aims to describe the
102 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132

Table 1
Aerodynamic objectives.
Reduce emissions Reduce drag Reduce vortex drag
Reduce wave drag

Environmental goals
Reduce friction drag
Reduce pressure drag
Reduce weight Reduce critical loads
Reduce community noise Increase structural efficiency
Reduce source noise Reduce airframe source noise contribution
Reduce engine noise contribution
Increase airport capacity Increase landing & take-off rates Reduce separation distances
Improve affordability Reduce airframe cost Reduce complexity

Table 2
Design concepts.

Engine exhaust control & trust vector control

Management/elimination of unsteady flow
More effective (smaller) high lift devices
More effective (smaller) control surfaces
More effective gust and maneuver
Turbulent skin friction drag reduction

for given aircraft control requirement

separations + turbulent source noise

Unsteady loads control (i.e. flutter

Reduced wake vortex signature for

Simplified high lift system for given

Unsteady flow separation and

for given low speed requirement

given low speed requirement

More highly loaded sections

LCO and buffet onset delay)

Laminar flow promotion

low speed requirement

load alleviation control
High aspect ratio wing

turbulent noise source

Engine noise shielding

Direct shock control
Adaptive sections

Reduce vortex drag X

Reduce wave drag X X
Reduce friction drag X X
Reduce pressure drag X
Reduce critical loads X X X X
Increase structural efficiency X X X X
Reduce airframe source noise X X
Reduce engine noise X X X X
Reduce separation distances X X
Reduce complexity X

main conclusions and works presented in these series of confer- the other hand, there are large geometrical modifications over clas-
ences. However, the paper tries not to be limited to KATnet and, sical aircraft configuration or other innovative configurations which
in taking advantage of this forum, it will give a general overview are aimed at improving aircraft performances substantially by re-
of the recent developments in these technologies. In any case, this ducing drag and/or weight. This section is dedicated mainly to this
paper does not aim to describe separately each of these technolo- point.
gies in detail. Outstanding reviews can already be found in the Different lines of action can be addressed.
literature [24,38,91,98] and, although it is always possible to up-
date those works (some of them are more than 10 years old), a 2.1. Blended wing body (BWB) and boundary layer ingestion (BLI)
detailed and throughout description of all those technologies illus-
trated in KATnet is beyond the objectives and the extension of this In 1994, NASA sponsored one of the first attempts to study
work. Also, the authors wish to point out that this review is bi- the feasibility of BWB configurations (Fig. 2). Liebeck’s prelimi-
ased unavoidably in favor of KATnet activities. As such, we may nary results [63,64], showed potential savings in: fuel burn (27%);
have omitted unintentionally important studies pertaining to flow takeoff weight (15%); operating empty weight (12%); total thrust
control technologies. It is important, also, to highlight the difficulty (27%); and a higher lift/drag (20%). The study was performed in
associated with this task. Most of these works were presented only a 800 passenger BWB for a 7000 miles design range compared to
in series of KATnet conferences and internal reports, and we found a conventional aircraft. Despite these promising results, an impor-
no further publications in journals or international conferences. tant number of drawbacks had to be solved in order to make this
Whenever possible, we included the reference to a journal paper aircraft technically viable. A new field of study, related to fuselage-
or conference proceedings but, many times, the work which is ex- wing integration, is identified: structural integration; aerodynamic
posed here, is unpublished. stability; the elimination of the conventional empennage; and the
presence of a non-circular fuselage etc.
2. Aircraft configuration technologies Additionally, the engines in the considered configuration are
mounted near the trailing edge on the upper surface of the wing.
This general topic comprises of two main different strategies. Initially, aircraft designers used pylon-mounted nacelles to avoid
On the one hand, there are small modifications in the geometry problems of surface integration and inlet flow distortion resulting
which produce substantial improvements in drag reduction (fric- from ingesting the incoming boundary layer. However, recent stud-
tion and wave) and reduce detached areas. Small flow control de- ies indicate that boundary layer ingestion (BLI) offers additional
vices as synthetic jets or vortex generators belong to this category. benefits including reduced ram drag, lower structural weight and
These technologies will be described with detail in Section 4. On less wetted area than a pylon mounted configuration. Because of
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132 103

Fig. 2. Blended wind body configuration from [64].

that boundary layer ingestion, nacelles started to attract the scien-

tific community’s attention [91].
Boundary layer ingestion means taking the fuselage boundary
layer flow through the engines for the purpose of improving fuel
efficiency. The idea comes from re-energizing the aircraft wake
which enables less kinetic energy to be wasted. Comparing the sit-
uation with a typical podded engine, it can be proved that, for a
given thrust force, less power needs to be added to a flow entering
the engine with a lower velocity. Consequently, due to bound-
ary layer ingestion, the lower inlet velocity means that the same
propulsive force can be achieved with less power. However, the
gain is not without drawbacks, the incoming flow to the engines is
highly non-uniform and produces loss of performance, additional
stress and fatigue to the blades. Moreover, the aerodynamic block-
age, associated with the fuselage boundary layer, is much larger
than that due to the duct boundary layer. Therefore, it has a major
role in the achievable flow rate and the increase in fan pressure for Fig. 3. Example of total drag breakdown (2002 standard).
a given thrust. The non-uniformity affects, also, the nozzle exit mo-
mentum flux, and the degree to which this occurs in much larger
the Boeing’s BWB-450-1L model. These focused on the determi-
than typically associated with civil engines. This effect can be alle-
nation of the effectiveness of the trailing edge devices (elevons,
viated by careful design of the input S-duct to the compressor and
drag rudder and winglet rudders), tested at various angles of
the use of active or passive flow devices which energize the input
attack; sideslip angles; and Mach numbers. The computational
boundary layer in order to avoid detached flow and flow distortion
work focused on particular cruise condition of Mach = 0.85 and
problems.
Re = 75 millions. Besides, in the range of Mach = 0.2 to 0.88 and
In order to reduce the flow pressure distortion at the fan en- Re = 2.4 to 75 millions, four different configurations (no nacelles;
trance, the detailed design of the input duct, has been studied by pylon-mounted nacelles; BLI nacelles; and redesigned BLI nacelles
[77], who considered variations of the inlet duct offset; curvature [19]) were studied.
of the two bends; area ratio and scalloping of the pre-compression
region ahead of the intake. It was found that duct offset was the 2.2. High aspect ratio
most important parameter governing the strength of the secondary
flow and impacted on intake recovery. In these studies, authors In large transport aircrafts, during cruise flight in a still air con-
demonstrated, also, that strong pressure distortion could eliminate figuration, drag is mainly due to friction drag (about 47%) and
the power saving related to the BLI effect. induced drag (about 43% – see Fig. 3).
The lack of numerical and experimental data available to com- Several strategies to reduce the friction drag of conventional air-
pare and validate new methods and tools is an important obstacle craft are under examinations and will be reviewed hereafter.
in the development of the BWB. In this line, Carter et al. [19,20] The induced drag which is the other big source of drag de-
conducted a series of numerical and experimental test cases on pends on the span and the lift distribution along the wing span. In
104 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 4. Spiroid loop (left) and downward pointing (right) wing tip devices from [42].
Fig. 5. Design box (hatched zone) from [42].
conventional large transport aircraft, the lift distribution is so op-
timized that no significant reduction seems possible in the future
within the current design approaches. An alternative approach, for
a given lift, is obtained through adopting a high aspect ratio wing
or a wing tip device. Extensive literature can be found on this topic
covering the theoretical background underlying the induced drag
prediction and methods to reduce it [57]; the link between the
wingtip shapes and the induced drag [16]; and studies of different
wingtip devices [1,27,55,97].
ONERA, Airbus and Technische Universitat at Braunschweig [42]
carried out an interesting study within the M-DAW Project (Mod-
eling and Design of Advanced Wing Tip Devices). Two different
and innovative configurations were analyzed and optimized: the
spiroid loop; and the downward pointing wingtip devices (Fig. 4).
Both concepts can have better structural characteristics related to
the wing root bending moment. For reference, we considered the
wing of a generic long haul aircraft. We compared the new solu-
tions and the new designs with a standard blended winglet. The
modifications were limited to 4% of the wingtip and the height of
the ground vehicles limited the downward device extension (see
Fig. 5). The wing was designed for cruising at Mach = 0.85.
Previous studies of the spiroid winglet [39] showed drag gains,
for a slightly lower root bending moment, of the same order of
standard wingtip devices. However, it suffers high-transonic inter-
actions in the loop. A specific optimization to alleviate this ef-
fect was carried out. The optimization was based on 45 design
variables (sweep; maximum thickness; twist; and camber). Some
shape design variables were prescribed (spiroid size; minimum
chord length; minimum aerofoil relative thickness (5%); and thick-
ness law with the same span extension and wetted area of the
equivalent blended winglet). Although slightly more efficiency at
high CL in keeping the same root bending moment, the compar-
ison showed a discouraging drag reduction of about 86% of the
blended winglet drag reduction. On the contrary, a detailed study
of the downward pointing winglet, which considered high and low
speed, root bending moment and lateral stability, showed some
benefits without incurring any major redesign of the wing box. We
obtained promising gains of about 1–3% in range over a long-flight
scenario and an improvement of 4–6% in low speed L/D.
Another line of research was related to the box-like wing con-
cept, which, theoretically, produced the minimum induced drag for
a given lift (Prandtl [79]). The following conditions are satisfied:
same lift distribution and same total lift on each of the horizon-
Fig. 6. Span efficiency for various optimally loaded non-planar systems from [58].
tal wings; and butterfly shaped lift distribution on the vertical tip
wings. Following these ideas, Kroo [58] showed a numerical com-
parison between the efficiency of different non-planar configura-
tion (induced drag of planar wing/induced drag of the non-planar
system of the same span and lift – Fig. 6) for several non-planar
geometries. Each of the geometries permitted a vertical extent of
20% of the wing span. Such designs may be of interest because of
their potential for lower vortex drag at a fixed span which is a key
constraint for many aircraft including very large commercial trans-
port concepts.
This unconventional non-planar configuration provides the
technology breakthrough necessary to obtain substantial gains in
drag vortex reduction. Between these solutions, the wingtip device,
already implemented in commercial aircraft, and the joined wings
are probably the ideal Prandtl wing solution.
The practical application of a box-wing can be seen in the
Joined-Wing concept (Fig. 7). First proposed by J. Wolkovitch [107],
this kind of configuration increases substantially the high aspect
ratio with a theoretical induced drag reduction of up to 40% [35,
96]. However, several non-aerodynamics issues must be studied in-
cluding the effects on stability and control, characteristics of wake
vortices or structural implications. Frediani et al. [35] carried out
a practical implementation of this concept on a modified A380.
The project focused on stability and structural issues. After an op-
timization procedure, they found that the rear wing could not be
connected to the rear fuselage but had to be positioned over the
fuselage itself and connected to it by means of two fins (Fig. 8).
This configuration proved to be stable in cruise flight; and, the
lift was distributed equally on the front and rear wings giving the
maximum L/D improvement. From the structural point of view, the
fuselage is equivalent to a doubly supported beam; the supports
being the front and the rear wing and, then, bending stresses in
the fuselage are close to zero in the front and rear wing roots.
The eigenmodes of the aircraft are completely different from a
conventional one; in particular, the lateral bending modes of a con-
ventional fuselage are not longer present. The damping moment
and the moment of inertia along the pitch axis are higher than
its equivalent conventional aircraft; hence, the flight qualities are
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 7. Example of non-planar wing configuration, Lockheed box-wing.
Fig. 8. Initial aircraft with joined wing studied by [35].
Fig. 9. Strut-braced wing with tip-mounted engines from [41].
105
considered to be very satisfactory; but this rises problems in the
properly design of the pitch control system [34].
In the same line, it is worth mentioning the strut-braced wing
(Fig. 9) which uses a strut for the wing bending load alleviation.
This allows the aspect ratio to be increased and the wing thick-
ness to be reduced. A thinner wing has less transonic wave drag;
therefore, it is possible to unsweep the wing allowing larger ex-
tensions of natural laminar and further structural weight savings.
The optimization of these configuration is concerned usually with
structures, weights, and stability and control [12,41].
2.3. Engine concept
Increasing the by-pass ratio of turbofans is a successful formula
applied currently to increase the propulsive efficiency. Geared tur-
bofan (GTF) and distributed propulsion are considered to be the
technology concepts for an increased engine by-pass ratio. How-
ever, the growth of the bypass ratio is accompanied by larger and
heavier nacelles. At a certain point, the associated nacelle weight
increase and drag penalty outweighs the growth in propulsive ef-
ficiency. The Contra-Rotating Open-Rotor (CROR) offers a break-
through solution. Operating without the drag and weight penalty
of a large nacelle, the by-pass ratio is no longer a limiting factor.
However, intrinsically, the open-rotor is noisier than a turbofan at
an equivalent thrust setting. To the authors’ knowledge, very few
studies of open-rotor configurations can be found in the litera-
ture. To give an example, at the 2010 International Congress of
the Aeronautical Science meeting (ICAS), there was presented only
one work on this subject [60]. We could find, also, no references to
open-rotor at the 46th AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference. This does
not mean that the scientific community is not increasing their ef-
forts in understanding this technology. However, the main efforts
are found in an industrial framework. Clearly, different European
Projects are concerned with the investigation and application of
this technology, e.g. DREAM, NACRE and, more recently, CleanSky.
These are focused on studying tail-mounted CROR configuration on
civil aircrafts (see Fig. 10).
The European Project NACRE (New Aircraft Concepts Research)
carried out a comparative study between an Open-Rotor and a con-
ventional turbofan. The turbofan was represented by the CFM56-5
series with 1995 technology. It had a 1.8 m fan diameter; by-
pass ratio of 6.6; and a maximum trust of 1915 daN These gave
a typical fuel efficiency at cruise condition of 0.57 kg/hr/daN. The
equivalent open rotor had a 3.72 m diameter and maximum trust
of 1777 daN, giving a typical fuel efficiency of 0.46 kg/hr/daN,
with a 20% of theoretical reduction. The results for a defined civil
aircraft mission at 33000 ft altitude with 180 pax of payload and
106 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 10. Open rotor configuration studied in NACRE.
Fig. 11. Comparative study between open-rotor and turbofan technologies.
a range of 3000 NM are shown in Fig. 11. These studies obtained a
promising 23% reduction in mission fuel burn and 8% reduction in
MTOW.
Compared with its equivalent turbofan, one of the main draw-
backs of CROR relates to vibration and acoustic problems, in which
the nacelle acts as an efficient noise shield. Due to the airframe
surfaces, the acoustic propagation can be alleviated by adopting
shielding and/or reflection. An example is NACRE [60]’s study of
the U-tail configuration (Fig. 12) In any case, significant develop-
ments are required to integrate this engine into an aircraft.
Another important issue is the necessity to develop specific
design tools. A Contra-Rotating Open-Rotor shares some basic fea-
tures with the classic propeller, for which various numerical tech-
niques exist. However, it is the vortex and viscous wake interaction
between the pylon and the rotors and between the front-rotor and
the aft-rotor which make the picture more complex. To understand
the underlying physical phenomena specific to a Contra-Rotating
Open-Rotor, it is required to solve accurately the tip vortices and
viscous wakes which emanate from upstream stage and interact
with the second.
2.4. Forward swept wings (FSW)
The concept of FSW is not entirely new. In the investigation of
the different methods of delaying the onset of the increase of drag
Fig. 12. Open rotor configuration studied in NACRE. Acoustic interaction between
the CROR and an U-tail configuration.
for flight in the vicinity of the speed of sound, it was found that
sweeping the wings provided the most effective technique of in-
creasing the drag divergence Mach number. Aerodynamically, the
same effect can be obtained regardless of the direction of sweep.
However, current aircraft designs favor the use of aft sweeping
in order to avoid the phenomenon of structural divergence, in-
herent in FSW operating at a high dynamic pressure condition,
which cannot be solved through metallic structures without a wing
weight penalty. Today, technology advances in composite materials
are providing a promise of eliminating this problem with little or
no wing weight penalty.
Some of the benefits of FSW include spin resistance; extended
high angle of attack and lateral control; and lower transonic ma-
neuvering drag. Generally, The FSW separation pattern starts from
the root and propagates gradually outboard. This allows attached
flow to be maintained over the outboard wing, and retains aileron
effectiveness at high angles of attack where, in lateral control, con-
ventional (backward) wings may exhibit degradation in lateral con-
trol. Other additional benefits of FSW are theoretical lower profile
drag due to lift and induced drag (for the same lift) [105]. Be-
tween the disadvantages, larger trailing edge sweep can strengthen
separation problems at inner wing, (worse with turbulent flow),
leading to pitch up, which can be avoided by using vortex gener-
ators, wing fence, vortilons (under-wing fences) or slotted airfoil.
There is a tendency for static divergence, provoking an unfavor-
able gust behavior which can be alleviated by aero-elastic tailoring
and unfavorable root mid size effect for laminar pressure distribu-
tion.
More recently, one of the main motivations for using FSW re-
sides in the fact that transition on swept wings is strongly affected
by leading edge sweep angle. Turbulence transition at lower lead-
ing edge angles can be dominated by Tollmien–Schlichting (TS)
waves, whereas higher sweep angles by cross flow instabilities
(CF). Different studies have investigated the regimes and effect of
sweep on wing turbulent transition. One the main conclusion is
that transonic FSW, because of its lower leading edge sweep an-
gle for the same 50% chord line angle (the typical location of the
shock (Fig. 13)) presents less CF [84], which theoretically can de-
lay transition until 25% of chord at a Mach = 0.8 configuration,
doubling the laminar extension for its equivalent backward swept
wing (Fig. 14).
In this line, an optimization study of forward swept wings
(FSW) was performed as part of the novel configuration work
package in NACRE activities. The design point was defined for a
civil aircraft of 180 pax of payload; 3000 nm of range; and cruise
Mach number 0.76 at 35.000 ft (Reynolds = 23.7 millions). After
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 13. Scheme of the main aerodynamic differences between a BSW and a FSW.
a structural and aerodynamic design of the wing (giving a wing
aspect ratio of 9.5 for a leading edge sweep of 17.8), a final in-
verse design phase focused on optimization of the laminar region.
For a given pressure coefficient distribution taken as the target,
the procedure estimated the C p distribution by solving the Eu-
ler or Navier–Stokes equations on the initial geometry. Taking the
difference between the desired and obtained pressure distribution
C p , a geometry correction was computed by solving a potential
equation formulated in inverse design ( z = f (C p )); the pro-
cess was repeated until convergence. Once the final geometry was
computed, a second loop could be performed in case the stabil-
ity of this wing was not the optima (Fig. 15). The final design
gave an inboard transition moved down-stream (upper and lower
side) with the upper side dominated by TS and a lower side domi-
nated by CF with an obtained drag reduction of about 14% of total
drag.
Fig. 14. Dominan laminar turbulent transition effect for FSW and BSW. Because of its lower leading edge sweep angle FSW configuration presents less CrossFlow instabilities.
107
3. Drag reduction technologies
Viscous drag reduction, which accounts for some 50% of the
total aircraft drag, shows one of the largest areas of potential
for improved aircraft efficiency over the next 10–20 years. Two
main lines are currently under development. There are investiga-
tion of laminar flow (Section 3.1); and turbulent drag reduction
(Section 3.2).
3.1. Drag reduction by extended laminar flow
Before adopting any resolutions, it is important to clarify the
different instability mechanics which may produce turbulent tran-
sition in a boundary layer. These are:
• Tollmien–Schlichting (TS) waves are driven by viscous effect
on the surface, they occur in two-dimensional flows and the
mid-chord region of a swept wing.
• Attachment-line contamination is provoked by the bound-
ary layer of the fuselage which propagates from the wing–
fuselage junction along the attachment-line and contaminates
the boundary layer of the leading edge.
• Curvature induced instability appears on shear layers over con-
cave surfaces.
• Cross flow (CF) instabilities occur in regions of pressure gra-
dients on swept surfaces. The imbalance between the pres-
sure gradient and stream-wise velocity inside and outside the
boundary layer provokes a secondary boundary layer flow,
called cross flow, which presents a typical infection point in-
stability.
Most of the works addressed the need to control TS and CF in-
stabilities. Although some examples of attachment-line contamina-
tion are shown, also, hereafter, generally, the CF are very sensitive
to free-stream turbulence and to 3D roughness whilst TS are free
of stream sound and 2D roughness. In addition, a negative pressure
gradient is favored in dampening the TS while could destabilize
CF. In any case, in a real wing, the transition is triggered by a
combination of all these effects, although, for some specific con-
figurations, one of them can be the dominant effect.
108 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 15. Algorithms for inverse design of a laminar wing.
In line with these flow instabilities, we considered different
concepts of Laminar Flow Technologies. These were:
• Natural Laminar Flow (NLF) achieved by a favorable pressure
gradient which are valid for transition dominated by TS.
• Laminar Flow Control (LFC) achieved by Boundary Layer Suc-
tion. In highly swept wings t which, usually, are required for
flight at high subsonic and supersonic speeds, only suction
can control sweep-induced crossflow disturbances which pro-
mote boundary-layer transition. Average suction velocity ratios
of 10−3 –10−4 were proven to reduce amplitude growth from
e 26 to e 5 for a flat plate boundary layer [87].
• Hybrid Laminar Flow Control (HLFC) is a combination of lead-
ing edge suction and pressure gradient/shaping. Generally, suc-
tion is applied near the leading edge of a swept wing in order
to control contamination and cross flow instabilities. Appropri-
ate shaping of the pressure distribution stabilizes mid-chord
TS. Its applicability was demonstrated by a Boeing 757 HLFC
Flight Test in 1990 and on an Airbus A320 fin in 1998.
• More specific approaches, that discussed here also, are active
control of transition by wave superposition [86] and span-wise
periodic distributed roughness elements (DRE) [86,87].
3.1.1. Laminar flow technologies
Delaying boundary layer transition is a well-known method for
reducing drag. To this end, significant work has been done on Lam-
inar Flow research with different prototypes flying already. These
are:
• The ATTAS (Advanced Technologies Testing Aircraft System)
designed by German Aerospace Center (DLR) [85];
• The Fokker F100 aircraft flight tests within the European
project ELFIN-II [90]; and
• The Piaggio P180 aircraft or the 757 HLFC flight program [40].
Recently, the need to reduce operating expenses for new com-
mercial aircraft has led to a renewed interest in laminar-flow tech-
nology to reduce drag in cruising. In this context, the HARLS Low
Sweep wing configuration optimized for fuel burn rather than op-
erating costs, and the idea was discovered that, using a low sweep
wing, might unlock the option of laminar flow. Two European FP6
projects explored this concept. NACRE (New Aircraft Concepts Re-
search) has performed multi-disciplinary assessment of turbulent
Fig. 16. TELFONA PATHFINDER Model in ETW wind tunnel test section from [99].
HARLS configurations and studied the application of NLF to For-
ward Swept Wing configuration (already discussed in the previous
section). TELFONA (Testing for Laminar Flow on New Aircraft) de-
veloped the tools to design and test an NFL wing and to be able to
predict the in-flight performance standard of an NLF aircraft.
Different activities, carried out in the TELFONA project, in-
cluded:
• The calibration of transition tools for the ETW (European Tran-
sonic Wind Tunnel);
• The investigation of the impact of noise and free stream tur-
bulence on transition location in a 2D flow in the TsAGi wind
tunnel;
• A receptivity study of traveling CF vortices to free stream tur-
bulence and of stationary CF vortices to the surface roughness;
and
• The wind–tunnel test of a performance NLF wing in the ETW.
These activities were structured around the design, manufac-
turing, testing and analysis of two wing concepts. These were
the pathfinder wing, which serves to calibrate transition predic-
tion methods for the ETW, and the performance wing, which has
to demonstrate the capacities of the HARLS NLF configuration by
Reynolds flight number. For the pathfinder wing (Fig. 16), the rel-
evant test flow conditions were:
• Mach = 0.78, 0.02; Re = 15 to 23 millions;
• T = 117 K;
• CL = 0.1 to 0.5; and
• Side slip β = 0 and −4.
The wing has been designed by CIRA, DLR and ONERA using
a 3D inverse optimization algorithm with linear stability analy-
sis. The Euler equations of gas-dynamics; the laminar boundary-
layer equations for compressible flows on infinite swept wings;
and the linear Parabolized Stability Equations (PSE) were solved
in order to analyze the evolution of convectively unstable distur-
bances. Laminar-turbulent transition was assumed to be delayed
by minimizing a measure of the disturbance kinetic energy of a
chosen disturbance which was computed using the PSE. The shape
gradients of the disturbance kinetic energy were computed based
on the solutions of the adjoints of the state equations [5]. The de-
sign point was chosen at Mach = 0.734; Reynolds number Re = 6.5
millions; and angle of attack α = 2.1875◦ . The method showed im-
provements in the viscous drag, which was reduced by six drag
counts. The design obtained a pressure distribution which gave
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 17. TELFONA PATHFINDER Model in ETW wind tunnel test section from [99].
Fig. 18. ETW and numerical results for pressure distributions and stability analysis
at η = 0.33 from [99].
amplification N-factors in the range 5 < N CF < 8, 6 < N TS < 10
with linear chord-wise variation. Parallel isobars were obtained for
a region which, at least, extended from 30% to 70% of the span,
with transition occurring between 30% and 50% of the chord. In the
experiment, pressure taps were located on diagonal sections which
were located roughly at normalized semi-span positions η = 0.33,
0.67 (Fig. 17). The results were compared, also, with the Tempera-
ture Sensitivity Paint (cryoTSP [33]) measurements obtained in the
ETW, showing good agreement with the computations [75,99],
which proved this methodology to be valid in transition predic-
tion (Fig. 18).
Attachment-line contamination can be controlled by an ade-
quate design of an anti-contamination device (ACD). ACD is a
passive re-laminarization device which is placed at the wing’s
leading-edge at a close distance to the fuselage which, firstly, aims
at stopping the span-wise propagation of contaminated flow of
the fuselage boundary layer since it reaches the wing and, sec-
ondly, at initiating a new healthy, laminar attachment line flow
on the other side of the device. In SUPERTRAC project (Supersonic
transition control [7]), a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS)-
method was considered for the numerical investigation of different
ACDs [56]. The change in turbulence state of the flow and the re-
laminarization process were monitored through different param-
eters. These were: shape-factor; viscosity ratio; streamlines; and
pressure distribution. Since leading edge contamination is a local
problem, a simplified geometry of a circular half-cylinder, followed
by a thick flat plate, was considered to be the leading-edge. It was
fixed to a solid cylindrical representing the fuselage at a sweep an-
gle of 65◦ . The flow computations were carried out for the Mach
109
number 1.7 and a total temperature of 300 K. They considered
different values of attachment-line Reynolds number (R θ ) ranging
from 205 to 443. Experimental evidences showed that leading edge
contamination occurred as soon as a critical value around 250 [78]
was exceeded.
They investigated two types of standard ACD shapes, namely,
two rectangular shapes with different heights (1 mm and 5 mm)
and one triangular shape (5 mm height) (Fig. 19). The main con-
clusion was that the rectangular ACD at a height of 1 mm was
incapable of stopping the contaminated flow, i.e., the high viscous
layer crossed over the ACD. The rectangular shape at a height of
5 mm was the most effective one; whilst, possibly due to its spiky
edge, the 5 mm-triangular shape was ineffective.
The final design was a combination of the rectangular and tri-
angular shape (trapezoidal shape) with sufficient height (Fig. 20).
The rectangular shape with a height of 5 mm was placed on the
front side to stop the contaminated flow and the sloped triangular
side faced towards the back in order to initiate a smoother geo-
metrical transition. This design was manufactured and tested and
showed that it stopped the contamination effectively and delayed
the critical R θ to 380, far beyond the theoretical value. Finally, it
was installed on the laminar wings of small supersonic transport
aircraft supplied by Dassault Aviation. The shape of the ACD was
adjusted to the shape of the wing’s leading-edge for a cruising con-
dition at Mach = 1.6 and CL = 0.11.
Also in SUPERTRAC, CIRA (Centro Italiano Ricerca Aeronau-
tica) proved the feasibility of a numerical optimization loop in
the design of a laminar supersonic wing. The optimization was
performed with an evolutionary optimization library, which used
3D Euler solver coupled with a full 3D boundary layer, and a
boundary layer stability tool which made use of the ONERA-CIRA
database stability computations. 25 twist control sections plus 68
shapes were defined as design variables functions for each section
(68 × 25 = 1700 variables). The following design points were con-
sidered in the computations:
• Mach = 1.6;
• Reynolds = 51.8 millions;
• Length = 6.27 m;
• Wing Area 50.0 m2 ;
• CL = 0.182;
• CM = 0.05; and
• Maximum trailing edge angle 6◦ and minimum leading edge
radius 0.15 mm.
The optimization loop returns a damping of pressure peaks and
mid-chord shocks and an important enhancement of laminar flow
(from 2% to about 10–12% of wing surface). This proves the feasi-
bility of using optimization tools in the design of laminar wings.
TsAGI [23,24] studied experimentally the receptiveness of the
boundary layer to free stream turbulence levels and noise studied
at. A LV6 laminarized airfoil with 1 m chord and 35◦ of sweep was
measured at free-stream velocity of around 80 m/s. The experi-
ments (Fig. 21) showed that, for very low free stream turbulence
level (0.064%), the transition could be delayed as far as 62% of the
chord. On the contrary, acoustic perturbation in the range of 2.0–
2.8 Hz and a noise level of 91–108 dB reduced the laminar region
to 55%. More dramatic was the effect of the free stream turbulence,
which for a 1% level limit, reduced the laminar region to only 10%
of the chord. Although, in this case, the acoustic receptivity of the
boundary layer was very low, when 3D effects were considered,
the cross flow instability mechanism dominated.
3.1.2. Laminar flow on nacelles
Recently, the NLF concept focused on nacelle applications. There
were a number of investigations carried out in the past on the
110 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 19. Anti-contamination devices studied in SUPERTRAC. Lower, mesh details. Upper, flow details from [56].
Fig. 20. Anti-contamination device designed in SUPERTRAC from [56].
aerodynamic interactions of the nacelle, pylon and wing. These can
be broken down into four areas [83]: interference effects of the
nacelle, pylon and wing; the effect of different nacelle position;
the effect of high by-pass ratio (BPR); ultra-high BPR nacelles; and
the ability of CFD to predict the interference effects. Today, the
larger By-pass Ratio (BPR) engines are receiving renewed atten-
tion. Larger BPR engines have better fuel efficiency but larger na-
celle diameters. Typically, current nacelles designs feature surface
gaps and steps configurations which can provoke laminar-turbulent
transition:
1. One aluminum lip with anti-icing system and external panels
in composite material.
2. Pneumatic anti-icing system with exhaust panel on nose cowl
external panel.
Fig. 21. The measured transition locations at various experimental conditions LV6
airfoil model (semi-bold symbols transition onset; bold symbols end of transition)
from [24].
3. Access panels on external cowls for maintenance purpose
(Temperature sensors, Anti-icing system, Oil tank).
4. Junction between fixed nose cowl and moveable fan cowls.
It is important to move downstream the junctions between the
nose cowl lip and the external panel; the nose cowl and the fan
cowl; and all access panels. In this context, the nacelles designer,
Aircelle, proposed to design cowl concept which integrated nose
cowl and fan cowls, allowing an overall improved performance,
versus current nacelle design, of about 1% in SFC due to exten-
sion of the laminar flow up to the 25% of the wetted area.
Recently, Bombarbier performed a numerical optimization over
an original long-cowl nacelle candidate which showed an improve-
ment of 7 drag counts in an isolated configuration at flow condi-
tion Mach = 0.8 and Re = 16 millions. The optimization was per-
formed with Multi Objective Optimization iSIGHT software, which
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 22. Transition prediction. Isolate nacelle.
Fig. 23. Suction skin connected by perforated honeycomb to structural sandwich
from [13].
used an Euler plus boundary layer computations for the external
flow and 3D compressible boundary layer stability for the anal-
ysis of transition prediction. The nacelle design methodology was
based on a target pressure optimization. Subsequently, the new de-
sign was tested in a wind tunnel and on a test flight and achieved
an improvement of more than the 10% in the extension of the lam-
inar region (Fig. 22).
3.1.3. Hybrid laminar flow
The use of boundary layer removal through suction was a way
of maintaining extensive regions of laminar flow which, since the
fifties, have been the subject of experimental and theoretical inves-
tigation [17,67]. Extensive research was undertaken to mature Hy-
brid Laminar Flow by suction; the influence of swept wing effects
and suction flow rate on its efficiency; and the variation of the rel-
ative drag co-efficient [9,15,24]. The technology achieved a certain
level of maturity. Consequently, it is being considered now within
the industry for future aircraft applications. The technological chal-
lenges are mainly non-aerodynamic – dealing with the integration
of the complex system solutions into the wing, nacelle, fin and hor-
izontal tail plane surfaces; manufacturing surface quality including
that of suction panels; the need for an anti-contamination system,
weight of suction system, etc. In this respect, Boermans [13,14]
designed a suction skin which was connected by perforated honey-
comb core to structural sandwich (Fig. 23). The typical perforation
requires a diameter of 0.1 mm and a relatively low hole density
with a porosity  1%. In order to check the maximum suction ve-
locity for optimal performance, the solution was tested in a glider
configuration.
Additionally, the intensive use of the DNS (Direct Numerical
Simulation) allowed new perspectives of the suction concept to be
proposed:
• Suction can be combined advantageously with excitation of
useful vortices (use of holes/slots to excite and support con-
tinuously useful vortices to combine the effect of suction and
suppression of secondary instability), securing and improving
suction performance;
111
Fig. 24. Suction test definition in SUPERTRAC.
Fig. 25. Stream-wise transition as a function of the suction velocity for different test
cases from SUPERTRAC project in [45].
• Direct stabilization of secondary instability of crossflow vor-
tices by pin-point suction reveals itself successfully with rela-
tively low suction rate (optimal for fixed vortices).
Very few studies of supersonic velocities are available. In SU-
PERTRAC the laminar control by suction of CF-dominated laminar-
turbulent transition was studied at Mach 2. After a preliminary
numerical analysis, a wind–tunnel model was built based on a
symmetric arc-shaped airfoil with relative thickness of t /c = 0.13;
a sharp leading edge; and a chord length of c = 300 mm. The suc-
tion panel was located between 5% and 20% of the chord. The hole
diameter was 17 μm. The model was mounted in the wind–tunnel
test section at zero angle of attack and a sweep angle of 20◦ and
30◦ (Fig. 24). The suction pressure ranged between 1.2 and 4.8 bar
for Reynolds numbers between 6 and 24 millions. The experiments
were conducted in the Ludwieg Tube Facility (RWG) at DLR. As
shown in Fig. 25, a significant delay of laminar turbulent-transition
can be obtained (typically from 20% to 60% of the chord). It was
observed, also, that, beyond a certain level of suction velocity, no
further improvement was obtained.
The HISAC project investigated the application of laminar flow
technology for a business supersonic jet. The aircraft was a swept
wing monoplane. The wing and horizontal tail were tailored in or-
der to keep the flow laminar over a large portion of the wing/tail
area. The wing design benefited from an imposed negative pres-
sure gradient over the largest possible length of local chords. The
laminar wings were tested in the ONERA-S2MA wind tunnel at
Mach = 1.6 and Re = 7 millions. By using suction and cooling,
112 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 26. Applications of NLF & HLFC concept on a supersonic test (HISAC project).
the laminar studies focused on high-sweep wings. The main re-
sults showed that Natural Laminar Flow should be achievable on
the outboard wing, which could be enhanced by using laminar
flow cooling, whilst suction and the use of anti-contamination de-
vices were needed to maintain laminar flow on the inboard wing
(Fig. 26). The orders of magnitude of the suction rate were be-
tween 0.0005 and 0.001 at the upper side and 0.001 at the lower
side, giving a 50% upper surface transition location and an esti-
mated viscous drag reduction of 28.5% (7.2 dc) [70]. The main
difficulties, in maturing the concept, were the design of high-lift
devices and the development of de-icing system compatible with
the laminar flow concept.
The City University London [8] employed Parabolized Stability
Equations (PSE) to consider the effect of Mach and Reynolds num-
bers on the stability of boundary layers (Fig. 27). They showed
that the critical N-factors decreased faster as the Mach number
and Reynolds number increased. This corrected the previous sta-
bility analysis which did not consider the compressibility. To ob-
tain a comprehensive idea, a typical decrease of N-factor from
5.8 to 4 suggested an increase in the suction mass flow rate of
9% and an increment in the pump pressure ratio from 2.0 to 2.5
which decreased by 9% the expected benefits in drag reduction of
HLFC (after deducting system weight and power penalties). It was
Fig. 27. Critical N-factor for TS wave as a function of the Mach and Reynolds numbers from [8].
shown, also, that, although critical N-factors for linear PSE anal-
ysis differed little from classical theory for standard experimental
datasets, when the effect of the leading edge curvature was taken
into account, a different picture emerged. In this case, the leading
edge modes were influenced positively by the curvature and, com-
pared to the HLFC for the same design, resulted in a reduction of
24 suction mass flow rate and an increased benefit of 9% without
curvature effects.
As a final remark concerning the Hybrid Laminar Flow Con-
trol (HLFC) technology demonstration, a test flight was planned in
the framework of the JTI-SFWA project. The new outer wing ele-
ments of the A340 wing incorporating HLFC could be flight tested
in 2014.
3.1.4. Alternative laminar flow technology
The current advances in micro and nano machining and electro-
mechanical fabrication have facilitated the emergence of alter-
native methods in promoting laminar flow. Identified research
lines include the polishing of the surface; application of dis-
tributed roughness to delay CF; active control of TS by mass-less
jets/surface actuation; and laminar flow control by heat transfer or
plasma. Such technologies may offer a more lightweight solution
than the conventional hybrid laminar flow system. However, more
research is required to understand the viability of such approaches
both in terms of the fundamental flow physics of how transition
can be delayed and the resultant control system requirements.
Polishing the leading edge is one way to extend the laminar
flow region. Test flights conducted by the Texas A&M Flight Re-
search Lab in a Cessna O-2A Skymaster showed 80% laminar flow
at Re = 8 millions, Λ = 30◦ , obtaining N factor > 16. The advan-
tage was that it was necessary to polish only 10% of the chord to
be efficient. However, typical of flight conditions, adequate eval-
uation requires very low free-stream turbulence, which makes it
impossible to calibrate in wind tunnel testing. Other disadvantages
are associated to the manufacturing process like the necessity to
use harder surfaces to reduce roughness or the use of leading edge
Krueger flaps to protect during landing and takeoff.
The Micron Sized Roughness (MSR) concept (or periodic Dis-
crete Roughness Elements, DRE) can control the stationary cross
flow vortices. The idea is to create an artificial surface roughness
which introduces weakly growing wavelength, λs , which generates
a modified mean flow which is stable to all wave-lengths greater
than λs . This concept was checked by Saric [87] who demon-
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 28. Swept wing in flight tests (SWIFT).
Fig. 29. Flight measurements carried by W. Saric with painted LE et DRE concept.
strated that the DRE could increase laminar from 30% to 60% of
the chord at Re = 8.1 millions; sweep angle of Λ = 30◦ and ve-
locity of 92 m/s (Mach  0.28). The experiments were performed
on the Swept Wing In Flight Tests (SWIFT) (Fig. 28) mounted in
a Cessna O-2A Skymaster at the Texas A&M Flight Research Labo-
ratory. A detailed computational study was performed in advance.
The design obtained a pressure minimum between x/c = 0.7 to
0.8, making the boundary layer subcritical to TS instability whilst
destabilizing crossflow waves. The nose radius was restricted to
Reθ < 100, making an attachment-line subcritical to instabilities
and contamination. Finally, the Cp distribution was optimized by
crossflow control. The computation was performed on the Euler
and Navier–Stokes equations for Cp and boundary layer calcula-
tions; Orr–Sommerfeld for stability; and Parabolized Navier–Stokes
for final assessment [44].
Stability calculations verified that the 4.5 mm wavelength was
extremely un-stable and that λs = 2.25 mm was the candidate to
control crossflow. Two layers of DRE were placed at 1% x/c on the
inboard pressure row, and 1.3% x/c on the outboard pressure row.
The DREs were 2.25 mm spacing, 1 mm of diameter and 30 mi-
crons high. For this configuration the transition of the chord moves
from 30% to 60% (Fig. 29).
SUPERTRAC and HISAC projects and, within the UK national
AERAST project for transonic configurations, studied, also, micron-
sized roughness elements for supersonic configurations. In SUPER-
TRAC [6], in a swept wing with a strong flow acceleration, the
transition was triggered by CF instabilities. Controlling this type
of instability required the knowledge of the target mode of the
most amplified natural vortices. Then, theoretically, a killer mode
generated artificially by MSR and arranged along the leading edge
could interact with the unsteady mode resulting in a more stable
evolution. The success of this approach depended on the pressure
gradient and on the choice of the killer wavelength [88]. In SU-
PERTRAC, a row of MSR were implemented on the wing leading
edge, using rows of roughness elements of 10 μm height and 0.2
or 0.15 mm in diameter; Reynolds from 3 to 7 millions; and sweep
angle from 15 to 30◦ (Fig. 30). Unfortunately, no clear positive ef-
113
Fig. 30. MSR concept tested in the S2MA wind tunnel (SUPERTRAC project).
Fig. 31. Visualization of boundary layer transition for the NLF(2)-0415 airfoil at Re =
2.2 millions. Left uncontrolled, right controlled.
fect was observed, according to receptivity computations, the used
MSR lay at the limit of efficiency in terms of height and diame-
ter. Probably, new manufacturing processes and/or tests at a larger
scale are needed.
More recently, Sui-han et al. [100], in collaboration with Air-
bus, studied the NLF(2)-0415 airfoil with a 45-degree sweep wing.
The experiments were performed at Reynolds 2.2 millions and
50 m/s in the Northwestern Polytechnical University’s Low Tur-
bulence Wind Tunnel (0.05%). One line of DREs were disposed at
1.7 mm spacing roughness located at x/c = 3.5%, with a diameter
of 0.7 mm and a mean height of 19.25 μm. The separation was se-
lected based on the most unstable wavelength of 3  3.3 mm. As
observed in Fig. 31, the region downstream of the roughness, the
transition was suppressed successfully until the trailing-edge.
Drag reduction, by means of active control of TS, could allow
the laminar flow to extend in difficult conditions (adverse pressure
gradient, high Reynolds number). The control of boundary layer
transition by wave-superposition is not new [102], but putting this
idea into practice is not an easy task. The principle of an Active
Wave Control System (Fig. 32) considers two steps. These are:
• The TS waves measurement with a reference-sensor;
• The counter-wave actuation and the monitoring of results with
an error sensor which allows the control to be adapted.
The successful application of the sensor–actuator system in the
range of Ma = 0.2–0.5 has been carried out by TU Berlin [30–32].
The TS wave amplitude has been reduced by 90% (at the error sen-
sor) in the wind tunnel and around 50% in flight (with a glider),
yielding to substantial delay of laminar-turbulent transition. The
experiments were performed in a two-dimensional NACA0004 pro-
file of 750 mm of chord length. The wind tunnel was provided
with an adaptive test section so that the pressure profile could be
changed to force the transition in the planar region of the NACA
profile where the experimental facilities were disposed. The free
flight test was done in an unswept Grob G103 Twin II Glider at
22.5 m/s with the actuator located at 47% of the chord’s length.
The difficulties for using this technique at higher Mach numbers
were linked to the development of oblique TS. In order to develop
these technologies, it is important to acquire more information
114 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 32. Principle of an active wave control system (TU Berlin).
Fig. 33. Dielectric barrier discharge actuator.
about the properties of Tollmien–Schlichting waves. Another im-
portant issue is the design of a robust control system capable of
managing more realistic configurations.
Other alternatives for laminar flow control come from heat
transfer and plasma actuation. In the past, controlling the tem-
perature of the wing skin was found to be relatively inefficient.
However. with micro fabricated films and sensors, it may be pos-
sible to control the heat transfer using relatively small amounts
of energy – which could make this solution more attractive. The
HISAC project considered the new approaches and could be ap-
plied to nacelles in the future.
The application of a near wall direct current to create a corona
discharge can delay the laminar-turbulent transition by generation
a body force [52] which accelerates the boundary layer flow in the
stream-wise direction. Theoretical estimations [49] revealed some
beneficial effects of this method in drag reduction if the boundary
layer included both laminar and turbulent parts [53,54,59]. A rel-
atively simple device employs two thin electrodes, separated by a
dielectric barrier (Fig. 33). Alternating voltage is applied between
two electrodes ionizing the air and creating plasma. The movement
of the ions transfers global momentum to the neutral air which is
perceived macroscopically as a body force on the flow. However,
the design of the experiments is not trivial, and it is important to
know the parameters of the plasma actuators (dimensions; current
strength; applied voltage; etc.), which can influence the boundary
Fig. 34. Typical riblet geometry from [36].
layer stability. The experiments performed by [59] in a flat plate
at u = 30 m/s, T = 290 K, and the Reynolds number, at the anode
position of Re  1 millions concluded that the plasma flow pro-
duced a significant increase in the value of the critical Reynolds
number and constrained the range of unsteady TS wavenumbers.
In any case, further experimental and theoretical validations must
be performed to evaluate the real performance of these methods.
3.2. Turbulent skin friction reduction
Even if laminar flow control is successful, a significant propor-
tion of skin friction drag due to turbulence remains. This section
discusses the different technologies: riblets and dimples or surface
actuation which aim to reduce the turbulent drag.
Riblets are small surface protrusions, aligned with the direction
of flow, which confer an anisotropic roughness to a surface. They
are one of the few techniques which have been applied success-
fully to the reduction of the skin friction in turbulent boundary
layers, both in the laboratory and in full aerodynamic configura-
tions. From an aerodynamic perspective riblets were identified as
a mature technology which could provide modest reductions (7–
8% skin friction drag reduction for riblet spacing of approximately
15 wall units) in aircraft drag. Flight tests confirmed total drag re-
duction of 1.6% (5% of Cd on 66% of the wetted surface) for an
A320 model (proved in the S1MA Onera Wind Tunnel). The cur-
rent development of riblets is in line with a better understanding
of the physics and the application of surface technologies like the
aerodynamic evaluation of riblet material for turbulent skin fric-
tion reduction. A current analysis of the status of this technology
can be found in [18,25,104]. The physical mechanism of the riblet
drag reduction effect is caused by a protrusion height between the
virtual origin, seen by the stream-wise shear flow and some mean
surface location. This offset would result in a greater separation
between the wall and the turbulent stream-wise vortices, reducing
the exchange of momentum at the wall [10,46]. The correct ex-
planation of the underlying physics is still a topic of research. In
this line Garcia-Mayoral and Jimenez [36] found that the groove
cross section A +g , expressed in wall units, was a better characteri-
zation of this breakdown than the riblet spacing, with an optimum
( A+g)
1/ 2
 11 (Fig. 34). However, the drag reduction was affected
greatly by the riblet spacing and size or orientation which, in some
cases, could produce drag increase. Other non-aerodynamic issues
were maintenance of riblet shape and adhesive over operational
life (hydraulic fluid, dirt, deformation by hail and maintenance); vi-
sual appearance, and time required to install, remove and re-apply
riblets.
Dimples are regular arrangements of surface depressions dis-
tributed along the wall. Dimples are a well-known measure to
increase the heat-transfer from a wall [21]; however, they can be
useful for drag reduction. Compared to riblets, they can be advan-
tageous since they are composed of macroscopic structures which
are less sensitive to dirt and mechanical degradation. Despite its
expected interest, very few works could be found in the literature,
e.g. only two articles about dimples were presented at the last
49th Aerospace Sciences Meeting of 2011, and some preliminary
studies [65] were somewhat discouraging by showing very com-
plex structures inside the dimple and little or no improvements in
turbulent drag reduction. These made them unattractive due to the
costs associated with their operation.
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Since the potential drag reduction could be large, the possibility
of using nano or micro scale electro-mechanical systems to control
the development of turbulent structures in the boundary layer was
investigated also. One interesting drag reduction technique, which
is conceptually simple and has the potential for a positive ener-
getic budget, is the cyclic span-wise movement of the wall [29,
81,82]. In this active technique, the wall moves sinusoidally creat-
ing a traveling wave which alters substantially the near-wall flow
structure. The main features of the oscillating wall technique are
the existence of an optimal frequency to maximize significantly
drag reduction, which can be as high as 45% when the amplitude
of the oscillation is comparable with the flow center line veloc-
ity. Following this idea, Tardu and Doche [101] showed how the
reaction of the near wall turbulence and the drag were sensitive
to the temporal waveform of the localized time periodical blow-
ing. The injection velocity is periodical and asymmetric in time,
with a rapid acceleration phase followed by a slow deceleration
one. Mainly in the deceleration phase, the flow is re-laminarized
during 70% of the oscillation period. Induced by the blowing, the
latter maintains the stability pf the vorticity layer and prevents its
rollup contrary to a sinusoidal time periodical blowing. Therefore,
a time mean drag reduction of 50% is obtained in the region recov-
ering 200 wall units downstream of the blowing slot. This is 40%
greater than the drag reduction obtained by a steady blowing with
the same time mean severity parameter.
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these method decreases as
the Reynolds number increases [22]. To overcome this constraint,
Pamies et al. [74] proposed the use of a simple modification of Op-
position Control (OC) to increase the performance at high Reynolds
numbers and, thereby, showing a significant improvement on drag
reduction when performing a blowing-only opposition control. The
analysis was performed by a LES numerical simulation in a spa-
tially developing flat plate (fully turbulent flow) at Mach = 0.1,
Reτ = 1100 and Reθ = 3300. This showed a local drag reduction
of up to 61% in the area of control and, in the analysis, approxi-
mately five times the boundary layer thickness.
The physical realization of this surface waves can be done by
using Electro-Active Polymer (EAP) [28]. EAP, also referred to as
Maxwell Stress, is based on the compression, by electrostatic pres-
sure, of an elastomer film, which is applied by compliant elec-
trodes upon the application of an electric field. By virtue of in-
compressibility, the compression of the elastomer results in an
elongation of the membrane which is used for actuation. This
allows continuous surface deformation, both in-plane and out-of-
plane. With this material, it is possible to create an array of active
dimples which act as time dependent depressions and which al-
low changes in frequency and amplitude. These inject local flow
disturbances capable of interacting with structures existing in the
turbulent boundary layer. A similar effect can be obtained by using
energy deposition (plasmas).
4. Separation control technologies
Separation is a continual source of nuisance for the aircraft.
At low speed, maximum lift, it is related directly to the exis-
tence of flow separation. For highly deployed high-lift devices, the
maximum lift is obtained immediately before an extended flow
separation region appears. Additionally, highly detached and un-
steady flows in gaps, slots and cavities in landing gear are the main
sources of aero-acoustic noise. In a high speed regime, the causes
of concern come from reducing the influence of the shock with
the upper surface boundary layer and delaying the Mach number
at which this interaction leads to flow separation and buffet.
The control of high lift induced separation on an airfoil may
improve the flight envelope of current aircraft or even simplify
the complex and heavy high-lift devices on commercial airframes.
115
Now, traditional high-lift systems have evolved greatly with only
small improvements in current aircraft performance. An innovative
step is necessary to obtain the desired improvement in L/D and
CLmax. This level of improvement allows an increase in payload
and reduced landing speed and, therefore, reduces noise emissions
and increases aircraft safety.
Separated flows can appear in at least two different conditions.
These are progressive boundary layer separation (PBLS) such as
trailing edge separation, which displaces progressively upstream
when the angle of attack is increased, and very localized bound-
ary layer separation (LBLS) such as those generated by geometrical
discontinuities. These two flow separation types can be found on a
wing in high lift configuration. For instance, the PBLS type can be
observed either on a slotted flap leeward side or on the leeward
side of the main body trailing edge near the pre-stall angles of at-
tack. LBLS type flow separation can be observed near the leeward
leading edge of the main body at stall and post-stall angles of at-
tack, and, also, near the hinge line of a strongly deflected aileron.
The use of flow control devices to control flow separation has
very attractive properties; at high speed, they can delay the onset
of buffet, and enable more aggressive low-drag designs or lighter
structures with the same aero-performance. At low speed, they can
enable simpler configurations and mechanisms, e.g. fixed leading
edge; short chord slat; simple hinged flap; and improve take-off
lift to drag ratio or recover performance for alternative platforms –
e.g. increased sweep or taper. In term of flow control actuators,
a PBLS type separated flow can be controlled with sufficiently up-
stream mechanical or pneumatic discrete vortex generators (VG).
A LBLS type separated flow can be controlled by a pulsed synthetic
jet slot (located very near to the separation onset) (Kroo [58];
Wygnanski [108]; McCormick [71]; and Courty et al. [26]), by a
pulsed blowing jet slot or pulsed pneumatic VGs (Kilbens and
Bower [50]).
Numerous research activities on Separated Flow Control were
undertaken in the USA and Europe, with many wind tunnel
demonstrations. These works allows the assessment of the effec-
tiveness of various actuators and various kinds of actuation, as
well as the optimal parameters of such devices (geometry; size;
orientation; flow rate; and frequency). A particular problem with
this approach is that the use of wind tunnel models requires the
use of smaller actuators than needed for in flight demonstrations.
Moreover, in pneumatic pulsed actuators, for instance, actuation
frequencies are usually an order of magnitude which are higher in
wind tunnel demonstrations than during flight demonstrations.
Flow control technologies can be divided into passive, active
and reactive. Passive systems do not require a power input for their
operation but have, in general, a drag penalty during cruise oper-
ation. Examples are vortex generator (VG) or sub-boundary layer
vortex generator (SBVG). An active system requires some power in-
put to work. Between them, we can find fluidic vortex generators,
pneumatic – synthetic jets, electrical – or plasma actuator or mag-
netic. Finally, a reactive system possesses some kind of intelligence
and actuates according to the information supplied by the sensor.
As described in previous sections, these kinds of systems are usu-
ally more suitable for boundary layer stabilization processes.
4.1. Passive flow control devices
Passive VG are simply small aspect ratio airfoils mounted nor-
mally to the lifting surfaces ahead of the flow separation point in
order to energize the boundary layer and to prevent separation.
The only difference with SBVG, also known as low-profile vor-
tex generators, is that SBVG are submerged below the boundary
layer to reduce the drag penalty. VG and SBVG can be classified as
PBLS flow control actuators. Typical applications of these devices
are the control of low-speed separated flows in adverse pressure
116 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 35. Numerical surface streamlines of a backward-facing wedge VG at Mach 2.5
from [61].
gradient and supersonic shock-induced separation. Although it has
been proven that the VG reduces the separation zone, there is no
existing satisfactory explanation of how they act. Lu et al. [68] de-
scribed a detailed review of the underlying physics and flow topo-
logical structures, presented around these devices. This was mainly
for SBVG at high speed, where it was shown that, although conven-
tional, vane-shaped vortex generators were well established (they
produce a par tip vortices which entrains free-stream fluid, and,
thereby, energizing the boundary layer), other configurations, as
forward and backward-facing wedge or wishbone and doublet type
Wheeler vane (better suited for high-speed flows in view of its ro-
bustness and produced typically a dominant horseshoe vortices)
showed an extremely complex flow topology (Fig. 35). This behav-
ior can be explain because of the presence of a tiny, sub-boundary
layer protuberance which arises from the flow separating off the
slant sides, showing that understanding the unsteadiness of the
flow caused by these devices and its effects on the external flow
was not as easy as expected. A second debatable approach is the
presence of an instability mechanism triggered by the VG which
is thought to produce a train of either hairpin vortices or vortex
rings which entrain high momentum of the free-stream fluid.
VG are found to be best suited for applications where, rela-
tively, the flow-separation locations are fixed and the generators
can be placed close upstream of the separation. The effect of dif-
ferent parameters (device height; length; spacing; and stream-wise
distance) involved in its design was discussed in [66]. The results
showed the effectiveness of the low-profile VG – h/δ  1, δ ; the
boundary layer thickness; and h the height of the device – in elim-
inating the inflection point in the pressure distribution, thus allow-
ing a significant reduction of separated area. Taller VG’s (/δ  1)
reduce, also, the detached area but at the cost of causing a strong
modification of the input flow, creating 3D flow structures (Fig. 36)
with a subsequent drag penalty. In any case, it is important to
emphasize the strong influence and sensitivity of the different pa-
Fig. 36. 0.2δ (0.8 right)-high vane-type counter-rotating VGs at 10 h (6 h-right) upstream of baseline separation from [66].
Fig. 37. Flap separation controlled by VG. Stow inside the flap well.
rameters involved in their configurations in order to obtain the
optimum results.
More recent applications of these devices are found within the
AWIATOR project, where SBVGs were mounted on the flap up-
per surface producing the delay of flap boundary layer separation
only when the flap was deployed (Fig. 37). When the flap was
stowed, the SBVG were contained in the cove region under the
wing shroud. The design was tested on an A340. Computational
analysis; wind tunnel testing; and flight test validation were car-
ried out to obtain an optimized design. The addition of SBVGs
to the flap at δ = 35◦ deflection increased the lift coefficient by
up to 2.2% over a wide incidence range compared to the base-
line configuration of δ = 32◦ without SBVGs. The effect of SBVGs
at a fixed landing flap deflection increased the lift coefficient CL
from 0.01 to 0.04 over part of the incidence range. As expected,
this indicated that the vast majority of the lift increase was due
to an increase in flap angle. A trend to a small increase in drag
of 4 counts (Cd = 0.0004) in takeoff configuration was within the
repeatability of the wind tunnel balance and, therefore, deemed
insignificant. Although the stall was produced 0.3◦ early, the flight
test confirmed this improvement in the behavior of the flap at 35◦ ,
with an increment of CL of approximately 2.5% at the reference an-
gle of attack.
QinetiQ studied experimentally, in the DERA (Defense Evalua-
tion and Research Agency) high speed wind tunnel, different SBVG
arrangements to prevent the onset of buffet. The SBVG were dis-
posed at 55% of the chord, ahead of the shock. The results showed
that split vane SBVG performed better than wedges in delaying
separation in these configurations. However, the ideal location of
the VG was not obvious. Additionally, the effect of the wing sweep,
which was not considered in basic studies, could be the cause of
discrepancies between the expected rate of boundary layer growth
(much higher) and the optimum VG height. Another important ap-
plication was found in improving attached flows in pylon-wing in-
terference or internal flows S-duct engine air-intake configurations
(Fig. 38). Studied by Onera, QinetiQ or numerically by KTH [103],
vane and air-jet VG arrays were effective when located ahead of
the separation.
A more energetic approach is the passive air jet vortex (AJVG)
generator (Fig. 39). Studied by City University [80], they can be
used at low speed to prevent detaching or, at high speed, to con-
trol buffet. The idea of the slots is to inject fresh momentum to
the boundary layer particles which have been slowed down by the
action of viscosity. The analysis at Mach = 0.1, Re = 1 millions and
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 38. Flow control application to S-duct engine air-intake.
Fig. 39. Passive air jet vortex system.
an angle of attack of 18◦ was performed on a NACA23012C aero-
foil – a modification of the NACA 23012. The model was equipped
with a span-wise array of 15 air jets of 4.8 mm diameter cir-
cular orifices, located at 12% chord and spaced equally with 45
mm between the jet centers. The upper surface was connected
to the lower surface at 4% of the chord. The air jet orifices were
designed with 30◦ pitch angle and 60◦ skew angle to the local
aerofoil surface and free-streamflow direction. Experimental vali-
dation was performed at the City University T2 Low speed wind
tunnel. For the CFD study, a commercial 3D time marching Navier–
Stokes (N–S) flow solver with the Spalart–Allmaras, and the k–e
and k–w (SST) turbulence models were employed. The passive air
jets were found to increase maximum CL by 14% compared to the
baseline configuration and to delay the onset of trailing edge sep-
aration by 2◦ . The occurrence of stall, indicated by maximum CL,
was found to be delayed from 15–16◦ to 18–19◦ , whilst, similarly,
pitching moment stall was seen to be delayed 2◦ . These effects
were the same than would be expected using actively blown air
jets operating at an equivalent blowing momentum coefficient C ν
(see definition in (1)) but were achieved by a natural process with
no active energy input.
Another important issue is related to the numerical tools which
were used in the computations for the design and validation of
these devices. Different scales of accuracy can be used. Because of
the turbulent unsteady nature of this flow, usually, detailed LES
simulations are necessary. This solution is very computationally
demanding and, currently, unfeasible to use in an industrial design
loop. The second option is to partially resolve the flow features.
Here, the devices are modeled by surface and volume sources
which generate structures resolved within the mesh (3D). At this
stage, reduced order models are considered also [95]. The third and
less expensive solution is to represent the device in a RANS aver-
age model. This is a statistical approach whereby no structures are
resolved and requires the same computational cost as for a RANS
computation [103]. One of the most renowned models is the BAY
Vortex Generator model, based on the lifting-line theory, which
was developed originally by Bender et al. [11]. This model sug-
gests a correlation between a force over a finite lifting surface and
117
Fig. 40. Sketch of the OA209 airfoil nose showing the leading edge extruded vortex
generators from [47].
the strength of the vortex which is generated at its tip. Therefore,
a force has to be added in the flow in order to create a vortex.
Jopubert et al. [47] carried out an interesting study to check
the performance of the CFD methods in these devices. The geome-
try investigated was the rotor blade airfoil OA20910 modified with
the addition of a row of co-rotative Vortex Generators (VG). The VG
consisted of a 1.0 mm thick frame extruded from the leading-edge
surface in the forward direction. Each VG was 115 mm distant
from each other in the span-wise direction and had a swept angle
of 18◦ (Fig. 40). The flow case was a low speed static stall test case
at Mach = 0.1617 and Re = 1.8 millions based on the chord length
of 0.5 m. The used CFD method was the ONERA multi-application
aerodynamic code Elsa which solves the URANS equations for
structured multiblock grids in finite-volume methods. The com-
putational results were compared to experimental pressure data;
lift and moment coefficients; and the Laser Doppler Velocime-
try field. Without performing a detailed convergence analysis, a
fair agreement was obtained between experimental references and
computations. The solutions provided a better understanding of
the vortex generation mechanisms and the influence of the Vor-
tex Generator thickness was discussed also. A VG with 1/5 of the
original thickness delayed significantly the stall; the reason could
be explained by a higher vortex dissipation in the thicker VG. Fi-
nally, the results were compared with those obtained with a BAY
model. The results agreed with the thin VG (tVG) computations;
and for the lift and moment coefficients; the generated vortex cir-
culation; and the vortex aspect. However, it failed to reproduce the
effect of the thickness present in the original VG. This was not un-
expected since the BAY VG model was designed for infinitely thin
Vortex Generators.
4.2. Active flow control devices (AFC)
Conventional AFC systems are focused primarily on the mitiga-
tion of flow separation to energize the incoming boundary layer
by coupling to the instability of the separating shear layer on the
118 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
time scale of the flow about the airfoil or injection of mass and
momentum. A very interesting, historical and in-depth review of
flow separation by periodic excitation including the parameters in-
volved, underlying physics and multiple applications can be found
in [38]. The studies, most of them about simple configurations like
flap and single airfoils, show that the use of active flow control
methods is not new and, even in the Sixties, some works could
be found for steady blowing. However, the increasing environmen-
tal awareness of the civil society, together with the maturity of
the technologies required for these devices (actuators; sensors;
pneumatic systems; etc.), led to a renewed interest in these tech-
nologies. Here, we reveal their most recent advances, mainly in the
context of KATNET activities, and, in particular, their application to
real high-lift systems. This is quite challenging for the aeronautical
industry since, for multi-element airfoils, effective control requires
extensive optimization to apply the system to a complex airfoil.
This involves the joint consideration of the detailed geometry of
the airfoil; Reynolds number; and the parameters of the excitation
such as amplitude, frequency and the location from which the os-
cillations emanate. The two more important parameters, involved
in the design of AFC devices, are the averaged blowing momentum
coefficient, defined as the ratio of the momentum and, in addition,
the free stream and the dimensionless frequency of excitation:
ṁV R Uj f e Xe
Cν = , VR = , F+ =
1 /2 ρ U ∞ S U∞ U∞
where ṁ is the mass flow rate through the duct; U j the average
jet exit velocity; ρ the external density; U ∞ the external velocity
and S a reference area. V R is the relative velocity between jet and
free stream; f e the excitation frequency – if it is applied –; and
X e the dimensionless distance between the excitation location and
the trailing edge (flap or wing).
Other parameters in play are the jet pitch, the skew angle, and
jet nozzle diameter or the duty cycle (DC), defined as the portion
of the period in which the valve is open.
Different theories about how the AFC affects the flow can be
found in [4]. Most of them describe the interaction between these
jets and the cross flow over the surface, leading to the formation
of a domain which displaces the local streamlines of the cross flow
and, thereby, inducing an apparent or virtual change in the shape
of the surface; an apparent modification of the flow boundary; and
the local stream-wise pressure gradient. Herewith is a short review
of current tendencies in this technology’s development.
4.2.1. Blowing method
The blowing method, also known as fluidic VG, consists of in
adding energy to the lower boundary layer by blowing air through
slots and energizing the flow near the wall which enables it to
overcome a larger pressure gradient. Jet entrainment had been
shown to enhance the lift generated by airfoils. The used mech-
anism, the Coanda effect phenomenon, allows the jet to remain
attached even when long curvature effects are presented. A typical
low-speed application is to delay the boundary layer detachment
at high angles of attack. The City University checked this concept
experimentally on a 35◦ swept wing, RAE5225 aerofoil section, as-
pect ratio of 4.5 and 0.958 m of span. 18 rectangular air jets of
30◦ pitch and variable skew were distributed uniformly at a 10%
x/c. The free stream conditions were M = 0.1 and Re = 0.5 mil-
lions. In this configuration, the flow was detached at a 12◦ angle
of attack. The pitch angle was fixed to 30◦ . The efficiency of the
VG depended clearly on the swept angle which, finally, was fixed
at −90◦ . The experiments showed the ability to attach the flow
completely at α = 12◦ with C ν = 0.03 (Fig. 41).
Also, in these experiments, a pulsed VG with pulsing frequency,
equal to the trailing edge shedding frequency, was tested. The
Pulsed AJVG injection was supposed to achieve the same aerody-
namic performance gains (same VR and jet geometry) and steady
air jets but at considerably reduced mass flows (C ν ). However, the
authors gave no additional details supporting this fact. In the same
context, the 2nd EUROPEAN FORUM on FLOW CONTROL (Poitiers,
2006) [94] proposed to study the effects of different fluidic ac-
tuators on the same NACA0015 airfoil. The competition was fol-
lowed by different groups in Poitiers; Monash; Florida; Tel Aviv;
and Manchester Universities. The NACA0015 model had a chord of
0.35 m and a span of 2.4 m. The analysis was conducted at a free-
stream velocity of 40 m/s and a Reynolds number of 0.96 millions.
Table 3 summarizes the mode and means of deployment; jet ori-
entation; position and number of orifices.
The following conclusions were obtained:
• Angled Steady Jet with diameter of 1 mm (0.27% < C ν < 0.36%,
2.5 < V R < 3.5)
– C L improves by 5–16% depending upon incidence;
– C D reduced 30% to 50%;
– Typical time for attachment/separation at 11◦ is 0.1 s.
• Normal Steady Jet with diameter of 1 mm (0.03% < C ν <
0.14%, 0.9 < V R < 1.8)
– C L improves by 3–5% depending upon incidence;
– Tendency to increase C D for incidences above 12◦ , except at
(1) 15◦ .
• Normal Steady Jet with diameter of 0.5 mm (C ν  0.4%,
V R  8)
– C L improves by 3–8% depending upon incidence;
– C D reduced 15–22%;
– More effective after 8◦ incidence (no separation before this
incidence).
For illustration, the ZNMF (zero net mass flow) was included,
also, in this comparison. In this case, a Reynolds number of 0.25
millions and free stream velocity of 10 m/s were considered. The
study was performed at an angle of incidence of 13◦ . The optimal
solution was obtained with C ν = 0.32%, V R = 3. The actuator was
operated at 1.95 kHz and modulated with a sine wave at 41 Hz.
The obtained results showed better drag reduction characteristics
at low incidences with a lift improvement up to 4%.
Other typical applications of these devices are the reduction of
simplification of high-lift devices, for instance, in the design of a
slotless flap and a slatless profile. Alenia investigated a slotless flap
configuration which removed the standard slot between the wing
and the flap by giving a wing–flap structural continuity. The slot
was substituted with a small cave where the effect of steady blow-
ing was augmented by positioning a small NACA profile (Fig. 42).
A preliminary analysis, in a baseline profile, showed a performance
improvement in flap lift with almost no penalty in drag (Fig. 43).
The configuration was tested on an Airbus320 at a take-off Mach
number of 0.153. The design considered that there was a need for
a blowing coefficient of C ν = 0.067 with U j = 340 m/s ( V R  6).
This flow rate had to be obtained by an estimated 8% of bleed-
ing from the nacelle flow (approximately 32 kg/s). The estimated
aircraft mass increase due to blowing system was 430 kg with an
estimated mass decrease of 630 kg because of a reduced chord
flap.
In the slatless wing configuration (Fig. 44), the slat was sub-
stituted with a blowing device located on the leading edge. The
results were compared with the high-lift devices studied in EU-
ROLIFT I. The experiments were performed on a modified ONERA
AFV wing in the Airbus Filton low speed wind tunnel facility. Four
different positions of the jet, relative to the leading edge, were
considered (x/c = 0.024 up BLE1, 0.01 up BLE2, 0 BLE3, 0.006 low
BLE4). The analysis was performed at M = 0.153 and a velocity jet
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132 119

Fig. 41. Efficiency of blowing methods to avoid the flow detachment for different values of the blowing momentum coefficient. Experiment performed by The City University
on a 35◦ swept wing, RAE5225 aerofoil section.

Table 3
Range of parameters studied in the 2nd European Forum on Flow Control (Poitiers, 2006).
Mode of deployment Means of deployment Jet orientation Position (x/c) Number of orifices
Steady angled jets (1 mm diameter) 30◦ pitch 60◦ skew 0.3 44
Steady normal jets (1 mm diameter) Continuous Pressurized cavity 0.3 51
Steady normal jets (0.5 mm diameter) Normal to surface 0.3 64
Normal ZNMF jet (1 mm diameter) Amplitude pulsed modulated Piezo-electric 0.3 56

of Uj = 340 m/s. A CLmax as high as 3.4 at AoA of 22◦ was ob-
tained compared with the original 2.5 at 15◦ .
Within the turbo-machinery field, one important goal is the re-
duction of the number of vanes or compressor stages. The design
of a stator with Coanda surface makes it possible to increase the
vane spacing; and, thereby, reducing the number of total vanes.
The idea is to design a curved surface, near the trailing edge, which
promotes the Coanda effect. This effect can be increased further
by blowing. The Institute of Turbomachinery and Fluid Mechan-
ics of Leibniz University performed a study concerning this issue.
The new stator was slightly shorter; had the maximum thickness
shortly downstream; and a trailing edge thicker than the original
one. The new stator’s internal plenum was designed carefully to
avoid losses (Fig. 45). The designs were carried out by a numerical
optimization making use of the Navier–Stokes equations. The new
configuration could increase the Permissible Aerodynamic Loading,
by 13% at the Design Point, and 0.5% of Compressor Inlet Mass
were sufficient to reduce vane count by 20%.
Also in the field of turbo-machinery, BAE Systems and Dassault
Aviation (in collaboration with LEA from Poitiers, ONERA, Snecma)
evaluated the potential of fluidic thrust vectoring to determine the
efficiency of a throat skewing concept on a generic high aspect ra-
tio nozzle. It was based on a modification of the sonic line through
the generation of a separated flow region on one of the lateral
walls of the divergent part of the nozzle (Fig. 46).
The flow separation control was achieved through continuous
blowing of high pressure bleed air whose mass flow rate deter-
mined the shape of the separated region. Different parameters
were studied: The length and slope angle of the divergent part of
the nozzle; the location; angle and mass flow rate of the blowing;
120 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132

Fig. 42. Slotless flap configuration.

Fig. 43. CL and CD as a function of C ν for the slotless flap configuration.

Fig. 44. Blown leading edge concept.

 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 45. Internal design of the Coanda stator to avoid loss in the air discharge phase.
Fig. 46. Fluidic thrust vectoring concept.
a combination of blowing at the throat; and, at the end of the
divergent part, influenced the nozzle exit aspect ratio on fluidic
thrust vectoring efficiency. Although in a preliminary stage of in-
vestigation the conclusion were quite satisfactory, in the sense that
it was possible to obtain a good thrust vectoring efficiency with a
monotonic increase of thrust vector angle, this was at the cost of
obtaining a reduction in the mass flow rate and thrust. The de-
crease of fluidic throat section, due to the blowing, was limited
by the engine surge margin. The RANS prediction of aerodynamic
efficiency (thrust vector angle; discharge coefficient; Gross thrust
coefficient) was in general agreement with experimental measure-
ments done by ONERA.
4.2.2. Vortex generator
The efficiency of steady blowing can be improved by using a
dynamic (pulsed/periodic) jet. The pulsing introduces periodic vor-
tical structures, which increase the turbulent mixing between the
low momentum fluid, close to the surface, and the outer parts of
the boundary layer. This allows the mean (net) mass flux to be re-
duced because the momentum is taken from the outer flow and
not from the actuator jet itself which only helps the transfer. This
121
Fig. 47. Oil flow picture leading edge actuation (lower side) from [106].
momentum oriented effect makes possible, also, activation by dif-
ferent sources such as air compressor; thermal (spark jets); and
electromagnetic (plasma actuator) or mechanical (synthetic jets).
From the point of view of applications, in a similar way to con-
tinuous blowing VG, they aim to enhance the stall characteristic
of profiles or high-lift devices, or even to eliminate the necessity
of these devices (slatless configurations). The main reason of using
pulsed VG is that some previous studies about detached flows [4,
38,72] showed that steady blowing could require more momentum
input for reattachment and separation prevention than an equiva-
lent periodic excitation. Although, in general, these technologies
are well understood, there is a need for further research before
being deployed in an aircraft, and, in particular, there is a need to
understand the role of the different parameters involved in their
efficiency. Some of the most remarkable studies are given below.
The German Flow Control Network, conducted by the DLR
Braunschweig, Technical University of Berlin, Braunschweig and
Stuttgart, carried out different experiments on the control of the
separation in the wing and the flap of a DLR F15-model [106].
The DLR-F15 is a modular wind tunnel model for two-dimensional
testing of different high-lift configurations. The model has a chord
length of 600 mm and the span varies from 2400 mm to 2800 mm,
depending on the test cross section of the wind tunnel. For the
two-element configuration, the flap deflection angle can be ad-
justed within the range 30◦ –49◦ . The experiments were conducted
at Mach = 0.1–0.2 and Re = 1.4–2.8 millions in the DNW NWB
wind tunnel of Braunschweig’s facilities. In order to avoid stall by
laminar separation bubble burst, the transition was triggered at the
leading edge.
For the main wing, the actuators were located at the lower and
upper leading edges and at the 25% of the upper wing (Fig. 47).
Pressurized air at a maximum delivery rate of 10 m3 /min and
12 bar was supplied by tubes into the model air ducts up to a fast
switching solenoid valve. This valve could operate at a maximum
frequency of 300 Hz. Fig. 48-left shows the lift coefficient over the
angle of attack without actuation and with an actuation at a pres-
sure of 5 bar; frequency 100 Hz; and a duty cycle of DC = 85%. In
this case, the flap deflection was set to 45◦ . The major effect was
seen to be a delay of separation towards higher angles of attack
by approximately 5◦ . In the linear range, the actuation reduced
slightly the lift coefficient.
In the case of the flap, Fig. 48-right shows the lift curves for a
flap deflection angle of 49◦ without and with active flow control
on the flap shoulder at 20% of the flap chord. For the unexcited
case, a large separation area occurred starting at about 35% flap
chord (not shown here), and was present for the whole range of
angles of attack. Exciting the flow with a frequency of 225 Hz; a
duty cycle of 50%; and a duct pressure of 8 bar led to a reattach-
ment of the flow on the flap, which resulted in an enhancement
of the lift coefficient of up to 10% in the linear region of the pre-
sented lift polar. The corresponding momentum coefficient was, on
average, about C ν = 0.25%.
122 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 48. Control of separation by pulse actuation. Left-main wing, right-flap from [106].
Fig. 49. Schematic drawing of the airfoil PS03-8.27 with the actuation setup and
CAD close up of the Nose. The airfoil was equipped with alternately oriented slots
5 × 0.2 mm2 , skew angle ±45◦ – from [89].
In the same way, Scholz et al. [89] investigated a PS03-8.27 air-
foil equipped with a total of 80 individual slots with a relative
distance between them of  y /c = 0.0375 and a skew angle of
±45 (Fig. 49). The optimal orientation; distance; and setup for the
span-wise array were optimized carefully [48]. Free stream velocity
of 50 m/s and a Reynolds number of 1.3 millions were considered
in this study. The laminar separation bubble, typical at this low Re,
was avoided by using a proper transition tripping at x/c = 0.3%.
Two different positions for the actuator were studied; one at
the suction side of the profile and the second at the pressure side.
For the suction side (Fig. 50-left), the actuation influenced the sep-
aration in a positive manner but it was unable to prevent it. The
optimum configuration was found at a duty cycle (defined in the
figures as ) of 25% and F +  1, with an improvement in the
maximum normal force of 0.12 and maximum AoA of 19◦ , around
5◦ higher than the clean configuration. However, clearly observed
in the picture, an area of retarded flow appeared behind the slots,
which embedded into a boundary layer provoked a small separa-
tion area and hence smaller normal forces before stall than in the
clean configuration. After the stall, the actuators could introduce,
now, some positive periodicity improving the global performances
at high AoA. When the actuators were located in the pressure side
(Fig. 50-right), the setup resulted in a successful vortex genera-
tor jet for separation control; the stall was delayed and an almost
continuous lift curve resulted. The maximum AoA was increased
by 2.5◦ and the maximum normal force by 0.15. As a drawback,
the amplitude was required to delay separation which was an or-
der of magnitude larger than the amplitude required to control
the separated flow with the suction-side setup. As a final remark,
it was observed that the maximum normal force and the maxi-
mum AoA for the clean configurations differed slightly for the two
setups (pressure/suction side). This was explained in [89] as the
effect on the unsealed slots in the different positions.
In the same context, Haucke et al. [43] investigated the effect
of the position and jet angle of the pulsed VG and their effective-
ness to improve the performance of a Fowler flap (Fig. 51). Two
different setups were studied: the VG located at the 10% of the
flap chord, with blowing angle normal to the flap surface; and at
the 20% of the chord with jet angle of 30◦ . As in other experi-
ments, the Reynolds number was millions, and the boundary layer
was force to turbulence by a rough strip located on the leading
edge. Other studied parameters were: flap gap and flap overlap;
angle of attack; flap deflection angle; and excitation parameters
such as frequency; duty cycle; and supplied air pressure (equiva-
lent to blowing momentum coefficient).
The main conclusions are shown in Fig. 52. As noted already by
other authors, very small dependence of the lift with the frequency
was observed. On the contrary, C ν affected greatly the actuation’s
performance; higher values of C ν produced higher values of lift
with almost no penalty in terms of drag. As a final conclusion, flow
excitation, with a wall jet perpendicular to the flap’s upper surface,
resulted in lift enhancements of up to 8%. Pulsed blowing, at a po-
sition further downstream closer to the time averaged separation
line with an inclined periodic wall jet, was more effective than
normal blowing. The improvements in lift coefficients depended
on each configuration and reached values of up to a maximum of
50%.
The extension to more realistic 3D test cases was performed,
also, by Petz et al. [76]. The mentioned model consisted of the
fuselage and a three-element wing containing the slat; main wing;
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132 123

Fig. 50. Effect of duty cycle and C ν on performance of airfoil PS03-8.27. Left, actuator located at the suction side with for fixed F + = 0.6. Right, actuator located at the
pressure side with F + = 1.44. From [89].

Fig. 51. Principal actuator system tested in the slatless configuration of [43].

Fig. 52. Effect of pulse frequency and blowing momentum coefficient in slatless configuration studied by [43].
124 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 53. 3D high-lift configuration studied in [76].
and flap. There was a sweep angle of 30◦ and a finite wing span
(Fig. 53). The investigations showed a substantial improvement in
lift and drag resulting in a lift-to-drag ratio enhancement of about
15% in the 3D case, compared with 20% to 25% in the equivalent
2D-case. Apart from these promising results, the 3D test case was
more complicated than appeared at a first glance. In the 3D case,
the separation process was different due to sweep effects and finite
wing span. In the separation, longitudinal vortices were generated
in addition to stream-wise vortices. The first test mimicking the 2D
parameters resulted in almost a 20% degradation of lift and drag
for the 3D case (Fig. 54-left). A second experiment was carried out
by moving the excitation slot downstream by only a fraction of the
flap chord and tilted in the direction of the flow. The results in
Fig. 54-right show a strong sensitivity of the flow with the param-
eter involved in the active flow. This is something which must be
studied further.
Kim [51] performed a thorough numerical study of different
slatless configurations was performed by Kim in a NACA23012
with 20% of flap. The author considered four different configu-
rations: (a) a synthetic jet at 12% of chord; (b) at 81% of chord,
only in the deflected flap; (c) a combination of two SJ with droop
nose device; and (d) deflected flap and an array or SJ at two dif-
Fig. 54. Left, preliminary results in 3D configuration. Right, after adjustment of the position of the actuator from [76].
ferent locations of 12% and 30% of the chord. All of them had an
inclined angle of 23◦ with respect to the local tangential airfoil
surface (Fig. 55).
Simulations were carried out using the following conditions:
free-stream velocity of 35.7 m/s; and a chord Reynolds number
of 2.19 millions. Three different jet velocities (1–3 times the exter-
nal velocity) and three different frequencies F + = 1, 2 and 5 were
considered. The characteristic length, used in the non-dimensional
frequency, was the distance between the trailing edge and the jet
slot. A suction/blowing planar boundary condition was adopted in
this work to model a synthetic jet actuator. The base configuration
(a) showed a detached flow starting at the trailing edge at around
18◦ . At 22◦ the flow was detached completely, a large stall region
dominated the suction wing side.
As expected, for the controlled case, the enhancement of lift
and drag was proportional to the amplitude of the synthetic jet
velocity (C ν ). At lower angles of attack, higher momentums were
necessary to overcome the stall at the trailing edge. At higher an-
gles of attack (22◦ ) the three tested jet velocities produced the
desired effect and the three tested frequencies were irrelevant in
all cases. At an angle of attack of 22◦ , the maximum lift coefficient
was enhanced about 7.3%. In this case, the separation point was
very near the synthetic jet slot.
The conditions for the maximum lift enhancement can be sum-
marized as follows: the approximate non-dimensional frequency
was 1; the location of the synthetic jet slot was equal to the base-
line separation point; and the jet velocity was large enough to per-
turb the surrounding separated flow. For the case of the plain flap
separation (b), similar effects were observed and the synthetic jet
performed well at higher velocities and as long as it was located
close to the detached point. When the wing flow was detached
completely (above 16◦ ) the flap was immersed completely into the
detached region and the SJ lost their effectiveness.
Although no significant differences in performance between the
frequencies were observed, the flow features were completely dif-
ferent. The low frequency jet (F +  1) produced a periodic shed-
ding of small vortices which moved along the suction surface and
penetrated into the large leading edge separation vortex. As a
result, the size of the leading edge separation vortex decreased
substantially. For high frequencies, the small vortex did not grow
enough to penetrate into the large separation vortex because the
period of synthetic jet motion was too short. Instead, the flow near
the synthetic jet slot was attached firmly and, as a result, a more
stable flow structure was developed on the suction surface (Fig. 56,
also, these patterns were observed experimentally in [37]).
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 55. Layout of NACA23012 with different configurations of synthetic jets
from [51].
Fig. 56. Different flow patterns depending of the SJ frequency. Left – F +  1, Right
– F +  10 from [51].
The question about which was the best actuation frequency re-
mained open. When the actuation frequency F + was O(1) – the
characteristic (shedding) frequency of the airfoil – the natural re-
ceptivity of the separating shear layer to this frequency resulted in
a Coanda-like tilting of the shear layer towards the surface of the
airfoil and, therefore, in partial restoration of the lift. The forcing
modulated the evolution of vortical structures within the separated
shear layer and promoted the formation of concentrated lifting
vortices which interacted with trailing-edge vortices and, thereby,
altered the global stalled flow. In a certain range of post-stall an-
gles of attack and actuation frequencies, the flow became periodic
and was accompanied by a significant lift enhancement. Although
this was the most extended application, it could lead to time pe-
riodic vortex shedding from the top surface of the airfoil which
could give up to 20% oscillations in the lift coefficient. In con-
trast, the suppression of separation at higher actuation frequencies
[i.e., F + = O(10)] was marked by the absence of organized vorti-
cal structures along the flow surface [2,4]. The mechanism which
led to the suppression of separation was unassociated with the
stability of the separated shear layer and resulted in more steady
structures. Also, it was investigated that pulse modulated with
high frequencies could achieve better performances at lower mo-
mentums [3].
Finally, the efficiency of a leading edge droop, deflected at 20◦ ,
was studied in configuration (c). The plain flap was deflected at
30◦ , and the synthetic jet velocity was triple the free-stream ve-
locity. An interesting comparison is summarized in Fig. 57. The
maximum lift of the airfoil with a 30◦ , deflected flap was al-
most 33.4% higher than that of the airfoil without flap deflection
(baseline); however, the stall angle was about 2◦ , lower. For the
125
Fig. 57. Lift coefficient for different configurations (ff: fowler flap, pf: plain flap, led:
leading edge droop) from [51].
plain flap actuated (configuration (b)) the maximum lift was 52.9%
higher. In the case of the airfoil with a 20◦ leading edge droop, 30◦
deflected flap, and two synthetic jets (0.12c, 0.81c), the maximum
lift was 65.8% higher than that of baseline. Furthermore, the stall
angle was about 2◦ larger than that of baseline. Consequently, the
combination of the synthetic jet with the simple high lift device
produced almost the same maximum lift enhancement as a con-
ventional fowler flap system (although the slope of the lift curve
was small).
Also, placing different SJ in an array schedule can be beneficial.
This option, as shown by [51] in configuration (d), demonstrates
that, at least from the aeronautical point of view, the combination
of weaker SJ in different locations can be more beneficial than only
a stronger one. Further analysis of the complexity of the systems is
not described here. In any case a deep study of the space distribu-
tion to obtain the maximum performance has not been done. The
same idea was shown by [93] from Boeing company in a simple
hinge flap, a conventional high lift configuration or more advance
high-lift sections (Fig. 58). In the three cases, there is proof that an
adequate distribution of the SJ along the slat, flap and wing, can
enhance greatly the lift with smaller devices and lower jet veloci-
ties.
In AVERT, there was performed a comprehensive study of dif-
ferent active flow control actuators. A 2D high-lift wing of 0.5 m
chord length and 1.5 m wing span with a GARTEUR AG08 cross-
section [69] was considered as reference. Flap Gap Oscillatory
Blowing, Fluidic VGs and Synthetic Jets Actuators were consid-
ered on the flap, whereas for non-standard high-lift systems, Me-
chanical VGs, Continuous Slots/Jets, Pulsed Slots/Jets and Synthetic
Jets Actuators were considered on a Droop Nose Device config-
uration (DND) (Fig. 59). In the AEROMEMS project, wind tunnel
demonstrations were performed by Manchester University and the
Laboratoire de Physique et Metrologie des Oscillateurs to test the
efficiency of some pneumatic VGs on a flap (Fig. 60).
As an example, a DND of droop deflection and flap deflection
angles with 35◦ and 32.4◦ respectively were studied. The model
was tested at 70 m/s and Re = 1 million. Numerical studies were
performed by Dassault and tested experimentally in ONERA L1
wind tunnel. The reference wing configuration is a droop nose
configuration, with a “standard” flap. The CFD defined the best
locations and optimum pneumatic VG parameters (jet exit size,
jet velocity amplitude and direction, spacing). Continuous blow-
ing showed effectiveness at 8% of the chord and C ν = 2.5–5.1%
126 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132

Fig. 58. Left, lift augmentation due to distributed flow control simple hinge flap. Central, effect of AFC application on each element of the conventional high-lift wing section
(representative takeoff configuration, δ = 24). Right, AFC for advanced wing section (landing configuration, δ = 50). From [93].

Fig. 59. Low speed flow control devices considered in the European project AVERT.

Fig. 60. Micro fluidic actuators (MEMS technology from LPMO) on AFV flap in ONERA F1 wind tunnel (AEROMEMS project).

to eliminate completely the stall on a slatless DND configuration
at an AoA of 25◦ (Fig. 61-left). For this configuration, the excita-
tion with pulse blowing (70 Hz) and the same momentum did not
perform well (Fig. 61-right). This was controversial with other pre-
viously mentioned authors, who showed better performance for
pulse blowing and lower momentum injections.
Another interesting application was performed by Boeing for a
commercial aircraft configuration, the US project ADVINT (Adap-
tive Flow Control Vehicle Integrated Technologies for Breakthrough
Aerodynamic Performance), in collaboration with Professor Wyg-
nanski’s team which aimed at improving high lift wings for
the Boeing’s ATT (Advanced Theater Transport Aircraft), by using
pulsed jet actuators to be developed and tested in flight condi-
tions (Kilbens and Bower [50]).
NASA and Boeing applied the same kind of control for high lift
wings (with and without gaps between the different wing com-
ponents). Since 1999, studies of wings with and without gaps
were undertaken and showed that the loss of performance, due
to gap suppression between main body and flap, could be reduced
greatly thanks to pulsed jets actuators (Sellers et al. [92]). Simi-
larly Seiferts work (Pack et al. [73]) demonstrated the success of a
flow control on a high lift aerofoil with no gap deflected slat and
flap. Several kinds of jets and synthetic slots allowed significantly
increased performance of such aerofoils by suppressing boundary
layer separation.
To our knowledge, no flight demonstration has been performed
in the USA for representative aircraft (lack of high authority syn-
thetic jet actuator). Nevertheless, in the USA, a flight demonstra-
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 61. Droop nose device with AFC tested by ONERA in the European project AVERT. Droop nose configuration, with a standard flap of a GARTEUR high-lift landing
configuration is considered as reference. Left continuous blowing. Right pulse blowing.
Fig. 62. XV-15 in stationary flight.
tion was performed in low free-stream velocity where available
synthetic jets (low authority) could be used, on tilt rotor XV-15
aircraft (see Fig. 62). The flow control was set up by Professor
Wygnanski’s team [109].
The aim was to control the flow on the main wing body dur-
ing the vertical take-off where a massive separation occurs on the
leading edge and on the 80◦ deflected flap. The synthetic jet actu-
ator was located near the hinge line of the flap.
4.3. Other applications
For conventional slats and flaps, the need to reduce source
noise terms for a given level of performance is also attractive. Two
technologies were identified: the application of acoustic treatments
to slat and flap coves and active noise reduction by the suppres-
sion of unsteady flows. The first approach builds on the knowledge
gained through the use of acoustic liners to suppress the propa-
gation (and potential amplification) of noise through the high lift
device. The challenge is to understand the characteristics of the
noise source terms and identify the specification of the liners. For
the active control system, pressure fluctuations which contribute
to noise are detected and suppressed by a sensor actuator array.
This is more complex than the acoustic liner arrangement but may
be the only means of suppressing some noise sources. The chal-
127
lenge is to identify suitable systems and control laws if such an
approach is to be realized.
Flow control strategy can be considered, also, for other aerody-
namic applications. The application of trailing edge separation con-
trol, through mass-less jet actuators to enhance aileron effective-
ness, may result in smaller sized devices with a potential weight
saving to the overall structure. This is taken to the extreme in the
case of wing surface separation control aircraft maneuver where
the conventional aileron is removed completely with load control
coming through wing separation control rather than a moveable
device. The underlying technology is the same boundary layer sep-
aration and attachment control and the extent to which these can
be deployed if at all – will be dependent upon the configuration
of interest. The development of robust and durable devices, which
can promote both separation and re-attachment minimizing ex-
crescence drag, is worthy of investigation.
Moving to the dynamic regime and the control of unsteady
loads, active flutter control, by control surface actuation, may be
considered to extend the flutter (or buffet) boundary of a wing
without recourse to increasing structural strength and weight. Also,
the onset of buffet can be postponed by using pneumatic VGs up-
stream of the shock position. The aerodynamic phenomena are
well known and the main challenge is in the design of suitable
control laws. However, because such a system is active, a key chal-
lenge will be to certify such a system due to the associated safety
issues. Pylon junction shock control, by porous cavity, may be a
useful means of alleviating the adverse effect of wing lower sur-
face pylon flow separations at rapid descent as an alternative to
other shapes or structural treatments. Again, from an aerodynamic
perspective, the understanding is clear and most of the remaining
activity is focused on demonstration.
5. System and certification issues
So far, the description of different flow control technologies has
been addressed. However, it is necessary to discuss some system
and certification issues associated with the in service use of this
kind of device. Summary descriptions of the problems involved are
(additional details in Liddle and Crowther [62]):
128 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
Fig. 63. Slotless flap configuration.
5.1. Safety
Flow control technologies should operate when they are com-
manded to do so. They should not operate when not commanded
to do so. They must not be susceptible to single point failures and,
in any case, failures must be preceded by degradation. It would be-
come necessary for the aircrafts systems to be able to test that the
AFC devices are working properly. This requires that many systems
must be doubled and checked often on the ground.
5.2. Performance and flight handling characteristics
Acceptable vehicle performance and handling margins should
be maintained under all likely flight conditions and flow control
system operational states. A system control must be implemented
which acts automatically. This involves a reliable detection of the
proximity of stall and a closed loop system.
5.3. Environment
A flow control system should not generate unacceptable contri-
butions to overall aircraft noise and emissions. Often, the tested
flow control devices introduced additional noise sources during
their operation. SJA and slot type devices, tested in laboratory con-
ditions, operated at audible frequencies. In order to avoid these
problems, it is possible that AFC devices may have to operate in an
ultrasonic range. This is something still under research. From prac-
tical implementation of these systems the following issues must
addressed. Generally, these systems are deployed at low altitudes
and when the aircraft is on the ground. Therefore, the flow control
devices must be resistant to the effects of contamination including
ice, water and insects. It is recalled that one of the main reasons
why riblets for turbulent drag reduction were not pursued, fol-
lowing flight trials in the 90 s, was the unacceptably high cost of
cleaning. For actuator concepts which involved the use of an ori-
fice, Hybrid Laminar Flow Control orifices tend to be of the order
of 0.05 mm and can be cleaned by reversing the suction system by
blowing through compressed air. However, AFC actuators orifices
are an order of magnitude larger, around 1 mm. This relative large
size increases the possibility of allowing contaminants to enter the
systems. Provision of a suitable orifice closure system may be es-
sential. One possibility is to use Electro Active Polymer Technology
(EAP). Typically, EAP actuators are silicone elastomer sheets incor-
porating compliant electrodes. Activation of the electrodes causes
a compressive force to be placed on the sheet, which is forced to
displace out of the plane (Fig. 63).
5.4. Industrial issues
Direct Fluidic actuators are the simplest to implement. How-
ever, these are open issues with the weight; volume of piping
required; and the poor energy efficiency associated with engine
bleed.
Some conclusions, obtained from the AVERT project, were as
follows:
• Velocity ratio for VG control (as found by CFD and to be con-
firmed by AVERT experiments).
– The leading edge control needs a V R around 5. If control by
synthetic slot VR around 2 is needed (Vj around 250 m/s).
– For a transonic flow control, a micro-jet velocity of the order
of Mach 2 seems to be needed.
– For a real aircraft configuration the mass flow for a non-
ZNMF control cannot be greater than 1% of the total engine
mass flow rate. For a Falcon aircraft, the targeted mass flow
rate cannot be reached without duty cycle and optimization.
– ZNMF VG and slots are a must but they have to reach the
expected performances (in particular higher jet velocity than
today).
– Manufacturing a micro actuator with a valve (mandatory
for continuous jets working in on and off modes and, also,
mandatory for pulsating blowing jets) must be able to sus-
tain high level pressure necessary for in flight demonstra-
tion (higher free-stream velocity than used within present
wind tunnel demonstration tests). The design and manufac-
turing of a synthetic pulsed jet with high authority (with
required high jet velocity  250 m/s) to meet the require-
ment of an in-flight type demonstration, seems still to be
unsolved.
• Mechanical devices and air control have to fit in a very re-
stricted zone. Control will not be feasible everywhere. For in-
stance, in terms of internal layout and mass flow bleeding,
anti-icing will have to coexist with air control, especially for
landing where the need is important and the engine is idle.
• For laminarity reasons, the control must be:
– Leading edge (low speed): As much backward as possible.
Small holes compared with BL parameters and compatible
with a hybrid laminarity suction device.
– Main body (high speed): Avoid fuel tank zone (first 10% of
airfoil) and as much backward as possible to prevent early
transition.
• When not operating, actuators holes or slot exit should be
closed to prevent dust or insect ingestion. Electro-mechanical
actuators must operate in a hostile environment (low temper-
ature, humid air, rain, . . .).
• Pneumatic devices are much more convenient than mechani-
cal ones (performances, compatibility with low drag buffeting
control, laminarity). On stiff configurations (knee), the control
by slot seems work better than VG (preliminary CFD assess-
ment, TBC by experiments). However, electro-mechanical flu-
idic actuators (SJ) are more complex than Direct Fluidic actua-
tors (VG), but electrical operation is consistent with the move
towards the more electrical aircraft and bleed-less propulsion
system.
6. Implications to aerodynamic tools
Two Aerodynamic Tools are considered CFD and the Wind Tun-
nel.
6.1. Computational fluid dynamics
Finally, to help meet the mentioned challenges, via the re-
duction of lead time and the provision of robust solutions with
improved quality, it is essential to be able to flight-test, in a com-
puter environment, a virtual aircraft with all its multi-disciplinary
interactions and to compile all of the data required for develop-
ment and certification with guaranteed accuracy in a reduced time
frame. Over the next decade, numerical simulation is foreseen to
provide a tremendous increase in efficiency and simulation quality.
Along with increasing capability to model and compute all major
multi-disciplinary aspects of an aircraft, it will become possible to
 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
fly and investigate on the computer the complete aircraft. Progress
in high performance computing (HPC) will contribute essentially
to achieving this goal. Considerable changes of development pro-
cesses will lead to a significant reduction in development times
whilst including more and more disciplines from the early phases
of design in order to find an overall optimum aircraft design.
All aspects of simulation (physics; mathematics; algorithms;
hardware; soft-ware, computer science; information technology;
man-machine interface; overall system; data handling; and appli-
cations, etc.) are supposed to deliver essential contributions and
provide their input and support to a superior cooperative effort.
Considerable advances have been made in the prediction of
drag for the full aircraft configuration. To enable better multidis-
ciplinary working, an improved predictive capability to determine
aerodynamic loads for high maneuver conditions (typically +2.5 G
and 1.5 G) and high Mach numbers (up to 0.95) is required. These
include the representation of control surfaces.
The ability to model correctly jet effects becomes more impor-
tant with the introduction of closer coupled engines and nozzle
acoustic treatments. Further work is required to validate jet mod-
els.
For high lift device design, where the ability to assess a num-
ber of alternative design options is essential before committing to
wind tunnel testing, the role of CFD is now expanding rapidly and
evidence from the EUROLIFT and EUROLIFT2 projects show that
it is possible to use the current CFD technology good levels of
prediction in maximum lift and lift to drag ratio are possible. Con-
tinued effort is required as the challenge of meeting noise targets
increases.
In order to meet the low speed performance targets, an under-
standing of the strength of the noise source terms around landing
gear and high lift devices will become essential in supporting so-
lution down selection ahead of test. This requires the use of higher
order CFD methods than those used for today’s performance as-
sessments.
Speed of use will be critical both in terms of mesh genera-
tion and flow prediction. Given the maturity of present methods, it
would seem appropriate to consolidate around a common toolset
to pool together the expertise in Europe.
The introduction of flow control technologies places new re-
quirements on the modeling capabilities of CFD. A pragmatic ap-
proach is needed regarding the level of detail required to model
the device and the level of investment directed to realizing this.
The benefit of a number of flow control solutions remains unclear
and some demonstration of the benefit should be given before a
large-scale activity is undertaken.
The introduction of flow control technologies places new re-
quirements on the CFD’s modeling capabilities. A pragmatic ap-
proach is needed regarding the level of detail required to model
the device and the level of investment directed to realizing this.
The benefit of a number of flow control solutions remains unclear
and some demonstration of the benefit should be given before a
large-scale activity is undertaken.
On top, intelligent means will have to be developed which
could allow a resuction in the number of required computations.
So-called surrogate or reduced order models, which were adapted
to specifics of aerodynamic flow simulation, could help essentially
in accelerating comprehensive use of numerical simulation in air-
craft design and optimization.
To finish up, it is important to highlight the increasing impor-
tance of simulation capabilities in the optimization loop for these
new configurations. The number of parameters, involved in the de-
sign of this technology, is so high that the use of optimization
algorithms is mandatory. Adjoint/inverse optimization methods are
currently under development and their applications focus not only
on classical aerodynamic design but, also, start to cover multidisci-
129
plinary applications; structure interactions; and stability methods
for laminar design, etc. The new flow control devices and their
proper calibration raise a new challenge to the numerical CFD
methods. Appropriate and complete numerical simulation of this
actuators is still not well understood; however, a high priority is
to model their effects in the numerical models to be included in
the optimization design loop.
6.2. Wind tunnel testing
For the foreseeable future the wind tunnel will remain the fi-
nal arbitrator in the validation of aircraft design solutions ahead
of first flight. Rapid machining techniques have enabled, also, the
wind tunnel to remain a key tool in supporting the development
of design solutions in a timely manner. The development of such
methods for metal wind tunnel components can give further bene-
fit since the wind tunnel plays an important role in validating our
design solutions as we step out of the box in current design solu-
tions to those that deliver the 2020 goals.
Flight scale Reynolds number testing will play an important role
in determining the flight performance of a future aircraft config-
uration. A better understanding of model support systems is re-
quired and the development of low interference stings would sim-
plify the performance prediction process. For half model testing,
a greater understanding is needed of the impact of the Reynolds
number on half model mounting and test techniques. The FLIRET
project is the main European collaborative effort aimed at devel-
oping new test techniques.
Flight scale wind tunnel testing will help to support the valida-
tion of a number of technologies for improved aircraft performance
without recourse to flight tests. This will be particularly important
for those technologies which are highly configuration dependent
e.g. natural laminar flow on a Proactive Green aircraft.
In the area of flow control, the wind tunnel will play an impor-
tant role in understanding the flow physics of the devices under
consideration. However, a challenge remains as to how such de-
vices can be represented correctly on a wind tunnel model scale.
7. Conclusions
This review gives an overview of key aerodynamic technolo-
gies, identified by the KATNet network, and how they are aligned
against the European aerospace 2020 vision goals. Perhaps, it is
surprising that, potentially, the biggest impact aerodynamics can
make is in the area of environment since this affects directly
product performance at high and low speed. It is clear that im-
provements to future aircraft, aligned to the 2020 vision goals,
can be made through better multi-disciplinary working supported,
within the aerodynamic discipline, by the accurate and timely pre-
diction of drag; noise; and loads. Opportunities may be offered,
also, through the adoption of novel configurations. Novel configu-
rations are outside the scope of this study. However, it is impor-
tant that the appropriate level of effort is directed at exploring
novel concepts to understand what they can offer in term of the
2020 vision. Also, a number of technologies are identified which,
now, have reached a significant level of maturity. They have been
flight tested with the AWIATOR and SILENCE projects. Potentially,
these technologies give us a further step toward the 2020 vision
goals. However, it is clear that the 2020 vision goals will not be
achieved through the adoption of these technologies coupled with
the evolution of today’s standard through better optimization at a
multidisciplinary level. Significant improvements in drag and noise
can be made through the adoption of a Proactive Green config-
uration. This is optimized for minimum fuel burn and noise and
has a relatively low cruise Mach number enabling a reduced wing
sweep and increased span and, therefore, low induced drag. This
130 A. Abbas et al. / Aerospace Science and Technology 28 (2013) 100–132
has a significant benefit on high and low speed performance. The
reduced sweep allows for the exploitation of Natural Laminar Flow.
However the viability of such a solution is dependent on the ac-
ceptability of a lower cruise Mach number. A number of relatively
immature technologies have been identified which can give a fur-
ther step in the direction of the 2020 vision goals and, if successful,
could see the goals being realized. These technologies fall mostly
into the area of flow control of which 3 categories can be defined.
• Separation control-offers a reduction in aircraft weight for the
same level of performance. It has the potential in terms of im-
proving high lift and control device effectiveness. SBVGs are
well known; however, the use of mass-less jets may enable a
more effective means of separation control to be realized.
• Delay in laminar to turbulent transition offers significant drag
reductions but at the cost of increased complexity. The mass
transpiration solution is well understood; however, the ap-
plication of new technologies such as MEMs and distributed
roughness could yield greater benefits and are worthy of in-
vestigation.
• Reduction in turbulent skin friction offers a significant level
of drag reduction through the exploitation of micro and
nano scale technologies to control turbulent structures in the
boundary layer. Fundamental flow physics research is required
to understand the mechanisms to achieving a significant drag
reduction.
It is apparent that a diverse research plan is needed if the
2020 vision goals are to be achieved. Effort is needed not only in
the area of aircraft configuration and component optimization but,
also, in fundamental research into flow physics of drag generation
and innovative mechanisms to control them.
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