Flow over an Airfoil

An airfoil is the cross-sectional shape of the wing of an airplane or a propeller blade. The airfoil body is designed to mainly produce two aerodynamic forces: (1) perpendicular to the free stream flow, which is called the lift force, and (2) a resistive force in the direction of the free stream flow, which is called the drag force. The airfoil shape, its surface area, and angle of attack play an important role in deciding the magnitude of these aerodynamic forces on the airfoil. When designing an airfoil, the best compromise should be obtained between the lift and drag forces at different free stream conditions. Engineering simulations, mainly CFD, help designers understand the effect of changing different parameters on these aerodynamic forces acting on the airfoil.

This SimCafe course was developed by Dr. Rajesh Bhaskaran, Swanson Director of Engineering Simulation at Cornell University, and Benjamin J Mullen in partnership with Ansys. It serves as an e-learning resource to integrate industry-standard simulation tools into courses and provides a resource for supplementary learning outside the classroom. In this course, we will learn to conduct a CFD analysis of the NACA 0012 Airfoil at 6 degrees angle of attack placed inside a wind tunnel by following the end-to-end workflow using Ansys Workbench. We will learn to model the flow around this airfoil and post-process the results to estimate both lift and drag forces.Learn practical simulation engineering techniques while following along with hands-on examples that can be completed either using your valid commercial/academic Ansys license or with Ansys Student.

For more ways to learn, check out the Cornell edX course, A Hands-on Introduction to Engineering Simulations at ansys.com/cornell.

Cornell University also offers a Fluid Dynamics Simulations Using Ansys online certificate authored by Dr. Rajesh Bhaskaran. Learn more here: https://ecornell.cornell.edu/fluiddynamics

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