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JRM Vol.28 No.3 pp. 273-285
doi: 10.20965/jrm.2016.p0273
(2016)

Paper:

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On High-Performance Airfoil at Very Low Reynolds Number

Katsuya Hirata*, Ryo Nozawa*, Shogo Kondo*, Kazuki Onishi*, and Hirochika Tanigawa**

*Department of Mechanical Engineering, Doshisha University
1-3 Tatara Miyakodani, Kyotanabe, Kyoto 610-0321, Japan

**Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Maizuru College
234 Shiroya, Maizuru 625-8511, Japan

Received:
November 30, 2015
Accepted:
April 24, 2016
Published:
June 20, 2016
Creative Commons License
Keywords:
low Reynolds number, airfoil, blade, wing, aerodynamics
Abstract
The airfoil is often used as the elemental device for flying/swimming robots, determining its basic performances. However, most of the aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil have been investigated at Reynolds numbers Re’s more than 106. On the other hand, our knowledge is not enough in low Reynolds-number ranges, in spite of the recent miniaturisation of robots. In the present study, referring to our previous findings (Hirata et al., 2011), we numerically examine three kinds of high-performance airfoils proposed for very-low Reynolds numbers; namely, an iNACA0015 (the NACA0015 placed back to front), an FPBi (a flat plate blended with iNACA0015 as its upper half) and an FPBN (a flat plate blended with the NACA0015 as its upper half), in comparison with such basic airfoils as a NACA0015 and an FP (a flat plate), at a Reynolds number Re = 1.0 × 102 using two- and three-dimensional computations. As a result, the FPBi shows the best performance among the five kinds of airfoils.
Iso-Q surfaces of very-slow flow past an iNACA0015

Iso-Q surfaces of very-slow flow past an iNACA0015

Cite this article as:
K. Hirata, R. Nozawa, S. Kondo, K. Onishi, and H. Tanigawa, “On High-Performance Airfoil at Very Low Reynolds Number,” J. Robot. Mechatron., Vol.28 No.3, pp. 273-285, 2016.
Data files:
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