Design and computational fluid dynamics analysis of bio-inspired non slender cropped delta wingsuit

Abstract

This study examines the effect of bio-inspired serrations on aerodynamic performance of a Non Slender cropped delta wingsuit model. In this study, Gottingen 228 aerofoil is used for designing the wingsuit model having AR of 1.00 using CAD software Solidworks. Ansys Fluent solver has been utilised to solve the Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations with a k−$\omega$ turbulence model. The flow velocity was kept at 45 m/s with Re ~ 2.6 × 10⁶ and angle of attack was varied from 0° to 45°. Computations revealed that the wingsuit with serrations in comparison with clean basemodel had a notable increase in maximum lift coefficient. The results were compared with the experimental and CFD results of existing literature in the open domain. The serrated non slender delta wingsuit performs extremely well giving a lift coefficient of 2.74 and $C_{{\text{L}}}$/$C_{{\text{D}}}$ of 9.72. The results were validated by comparing them with flat plate and non slender cropped delta wing results available in the existing literature. A good agreement in terms of trends was obtained for $C_{{\text{L}}}$ and $C_{{\text{D}}}$ which indicates that proposed wingsuit should perform well aerodynamically under typical wingsuit flying conditions.