Open AccessNumerical and Experimental Investigation of a Serpentine Inlet Constructed with a Polynomial
Author(s) -
Changjie Ge,
Bin Chen,
Yinhui Shang,
Rui Han
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
iop conference series. materials science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1757-899X
pISSN - 1757-8981
DOI - 10.1088/1757-899x/790/1/012092
Subject(s) - inlet , aerodynamics , mach number , inflow , wind tunnel , mechanics , flow (mathematics) , aerospace engineering , computational fluid dynamics , polynomial , reynolds number , distortion (music) , mass flow , computer science , marine engineering , geology , mechanical engineering , engineering , physics , mathematics , mathematical analysis , telecommunications , amplifier , turbulence , bandwidth (computing)
The investigation of the serpentine inlet is particularly important due to the high stealth requirements of the next generation unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The paper presents a design method of generating a serpentine inlet controlled by a center line which is a polynomial. The serpentine inlet is designed considering the positions of the airborne equipment, the stealth and aerodynamic performances. The study includes numerical simulations based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulation approach and experiments in wind tunnel. The aerodynamic performances of the serpentine inlet at different inflow Mach numbers, mass flow ratios and angles of attack are obtained. Moreover, the flow structures are studied at several critical conditions and the performance and distortion of the designed serpentine inlet are acceptable without any flow control.