Airfoil with Integrated Distributed Propulsion

The current paper presents a hybrid, two-dimensional CFD study and experimental wind tunnel test of zero-pitching moment, modified MH93 airfoil, equipped with a distributed integrated propulsion system. XFoil and RANS based CFD simulations assisted in the design and predicted significant benefits of increased maximum lift while zeroing drag at Reynolds numbers of order 1 million. Experimental validation used rapid prototyping and hobby airplane hardware to construct the powered airfoil and demonstrate the concept using 2D, low speed wind tunnel testing. Indeed, the drag nullified and maximum lift increment of about 0.4 was measured. More work is required to tailor the CFD predictions and its experimental realization quantitatively in terms of the thrust and energy predictions that are required to realize the technology.