Study on the differences in predicting the aerodynamic characteristics of thin film skin wings using different turbulence models

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Abstract
Solar-powered drones typically use flexible thin film material as skin materials to adapt to the high aspect ratio and low wing load wings. However, the thin film undergoes elastic deformation under aerodynamic loads, resulting in uncertain effects on the aerodynamic characteristics. To verify which turbulence model has higher prediction accuracy for the low Reynolds number aerodynamic characteristics of thin film wings, this paper conducted fluid-structure coupling analysis on thin film wings using both the S-A model and the Transition SST model. The influence of turbulence models on numerical analysis results was studied by comparing them with wind tunnel test results. The results indicate that: (1) Both models have high prediction accuracy for lift; (2) At low angles of attack, the two models have higher accuracy in predicting drag, while at high angles of attack, the predictive accuracy sharply decreases, and the S-A model has higher accuracy; (3) The prediction accuracy of pitch moment by the two models is worse than that of lift, while the Tran-SST model has higher accuracy. This has reference value for studying the aerodynamic characteristics of solar-powered drones.

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