Free surface effects on 2-D airfoils and 3-D wings moving over water

The iterative boundary element method (IBEM) developed originally before for cavitating two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) hydrofoils moving under free surface is modified and applied to the case of 2-D (two-dimensional) airfoils and 3-D (three-dimensional) wings over water. The calculation of the steady-state flow characteristics of an inviscid, incompressible fluid past 2-D airfoils and 3-D wings above free water surface is of practical importance for air-assisted marine vehicles such as some racing boats including catamarans with hydrofoils and WIG (Wing-In-Ground) effect crafts. In the present paper, the effects of free surface both on 2-D airfoils and 3-D wings moving steadily over free water surface are investigated in detail. The iterative numerical method (IBEM) based on the Green’s theorem allows separating the airfoil or wing problems and the free surface problem. Both the 2-D airfoil surface (or 3-D wing surface) and the free surface are modeled with constant strength dipole and constant strength source panels. While the kinematic boundary condition is applied on the airfoil surface or on the wing surface, the linearized kinematic-dynamic combined condition is applied on the free surface. The source strengths on the free surface are expressed in terms of perturbation potential by applying the linearized free surface conditions. No radiation condition is enforced for downstream boundary in 2-D airfoil and 3-D wing cases and transverse boundaries in only 3-D wing case. The method is first applied to 2-D NACA0004 airfoil with angle of attack of four degrees to validate the method. The effects of height of 2-D airfoil from free surface and Froude number on lift and drag coefficients are investigated. The method is also applied to NACA0015 airfoil for another validation with experiments in case of ground effect. The lift coefficient with different clearance values are compared with those of experiments. The numerical method is then applied to NACA0012 airfoil with the angle of attack of five degrees and the effects of Froude number and clearance on the lift and drag coefficients are discussed. The method is lastly applied to a rectangular 3-D wing and the effects of Froude number on wing performance have been investigated. The numerical results for wing moving under free surface have also been compared with those of the same wing moving above free surface. It has been found that the free surface can affect the wing performance significantly.