www.ijep.

orgInternationalJournalofEnergyandPower(IJEP)Volume2Issue4,November2013

ANumericalStudyonTrailingEdgeJetin
DistributedPropulsionSystem
JingyaoDuan*1,WeiYuan2,QiushiLi3
SchoolofEnergyandPowerEngineering,BeijingUniversityofAeronauticsandAstronautics
XueYuanRoadNo.37,HaiDianDistrict,BeiJing,China
stacieduan@126.com;2 yuanwei@buaa.edu.cn;3liqs@buaa.edu.cn

*1

Abstract

twodimensional airfoil with jet added on the trailing

edge. A simulation was performed to investigate the
influenceofjetonairframeaerodynamicperformance
and propulsion efficiency, thus offering advices on
elementarydesignofdistributedpropulsionsystem.

The distributed propulsion is a new type of aircraft power

system with fuselage/propulsion integration. In order to
study the influence of trailing edge jet on airframe
aerodynamic performance and propulsion efficiency of the
distributed propulsion system, a twodimensional airfoil
withtrailingedgejet,modellingtheprofileoffuselage,was
studied numerically to discuss the influence of angle of
attack and jet angle on aerodynamic performance and
propulsionefficiency.Suggestionsondesignandapplication
of distributed propulsion system were provided. Results
showedthattrailingedgejetisabletoimprovetheliftdrag
ratio and propulsion efficiency at small/medium angle of
attack.However,dragofairfoilroserapidlyathighangleof
attackwithincreasingjetangle,resultinginadverseimpact
onbothaerodynamicperformanceandpropulsionefficiency.

FIG.1BWBAIRCRAFTWITHDISTRIBUTEDPROPULSION

Model and Method

AirfoilSeletionandDefinitionofAngles

Keywords

The NACA 0012 airfoil was selected as thesimplified

modelofBWBfuselage2dimensionalprofile,witha
chord length of 1 m. In order to create a jet with
certain thickness, the airfoil was cut at 2% chord
lengthfromthetrailingedge,formingablunttrailing
edge with thickness of 7.25103 m, i.e. the jet height.
Fig. 2 illustrates the modified airfoil and the position
ofblunttrailingedge,aswellasthedefinitionofaxis
systems and angles. The xaxis in the Cartesian
coordinate system was aligned with the airfoil
chordline.TheanglebetweenthefreestreamflowU
andthexaxiswasdefinedasangleofattack.Thejet
deflectionanglewasdefinedastheanglebetweenjet
and axis x. Positive and negative jet angles mean
deflectiondownwardsandupwardsrespectively.

Distributed Propulsion; Trailing Edge Jet; Computational Fluid

Dynamics;PropulsiveEfficiency

Introduction
Traditional propulsion system has been limited in
performance improvement such as liftdrag ratio
enhancement and fuel consumption reduction. It is
urgent to find a new way to meet the increasingly
needs of development. The distributed propulsion is
preferred, using multiple small/mini aircraft engines
insteadofconventionallargesizedengines(SehraAK,
2004),inordertoreducethenoise,takeoffandlanding
time, and fuel consumption via thrust redistribution
(Gohardani A S, 2011). In a distributed propulsion
system, a number of small engines are spanwise
placed above the BlendedWingBody (hereinafter B
WB) fuselage near the trailing edge, and engines are
usually embedded into, or very close to the fuselage
(KimHD,2008andKoA,2003,showninFig.1).Thus,
the jet out of the nozzle is bound to affect the flow
field near the trailing edge and consequently having
animpactonaircraftaerodynamicperformance.

In this paper, the BWBfuselage wassimplifiedinto a

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FIG.2NACA 0012 AIRFOIL AND DEFINITION OF ANGLES

InternationalJournalofEnergyandPower(IJEP)Volume2Issue4,November2013www.ijep.org

wereimposedtotheblunttrailingedgeintheprocess
of the simulation. Net drag Dnet, the total force of
airfoil drag and thrust in the direction of incoming
flow, was derived from the numerical results, which
should be ideally equal to zero or a very small value
fortheselfpropelledsystem.Dependingonthevalue
of the net drag, more iterations were performed to
workouttheappropriatejetflowvelocitytomeetthe
requirementsofselfpropelledsystem.

NumericalMethod
Astructuredmeshwithoverallgirdpointsof146,000
waswrappedaroundtheairfoilinaCgridtopology,
created by ICEM. The distance from the airfoil to the
side and upstream boundary is 15c, and to the
downstream boundary is 20c, where c is the airfoil
chord.Pressurebasedcouplingimplicitalgorithmand
secondorderupwinddifferenceschemewereutilized
in Fluent to solve the flow around the airfoil, with
SpalartAllmarasmodelintroducingturbulence.

Results and Discussion

Flying conditions were chosen to match a typical

aircraft wing at cruise condition at height of 11 km
above sealevel. At this chosen condition, free stream
static temperature was T=216K, static pressure was
p=22700Pa,cruiseMachnumberwasM=0.7,andthe
Reynoldsnumberbasedonthechordwiththeselected
flying conditions was Re=5.18106. Pressurefarfield
and pressureoutlet conditions were respectively
applied on the inlet and outlet of the computational
domain. A nonslip adiabatic smooth wall boundary
conditionwasusedfortheairfoilsurface.

Three different angles of attack were studied: =0.6,

2,and4.Simulationswithsevenjetdeflectionangles
(10, 2, 0, 2, 5, 10 and 15) were performed at
eachangleofattack.Theeffectsofattackangleandjet
angleontheliftcoefficientCL,dragcoefficientCD,lift
drag ratio CL/CD and propulsion efficiency p are
presentedinFig.3.TheFroudePropulsionEfficiency,
p, is defined as the ratio of useful power out of the
propulsor to the rate of kinetic energy added to the
flow by the propulsor. For a jet engine isolated from
anaircraftwing,thesimiliarresultis:

Pressureoutlet condition containing the total

temperature, total pressure, jet direction and static
pressure was imposed on the blunt trailing edge to
produce the jet. The pressure was considered being
equal to the average of pressure on the upper and
lowersurfaces of theairfoilat the trailing edge. Total
temperatureandtotalpressurecouldbederivedfrom
thejetflowMachnumberMjetwhichwasdetermined
from the thrust of the jet. The jetwing model was
regardedasaselfpropelledsystem,meaningthatthe
thrustinthefreestreamdirectionproducedbytrailing
edgejet(Thrustjet)isequaltothelocaldrag(D),which
canbeexpressedasEq.(1):

2
1 U jet / U

(3)

(a) CL

(b) CD

(c) CL/CD

(d)PropulsionEfficiency

Thrust jet cos( ) D

(1)

Combiningthethrustequationandconsideringaunit
wingspan(b=1m)inEq.(1),weobtained

jet U jet hjet (U jet U ) ( p jet p ) hjet

1
(2)
CD ( U 2 C )
2
=
cos( )

whereCDisthedragcoefficient,andU,jetandUjet
arethedensityandvelocitymagnitudeoffreestream
andjetrespectively.

InfluenceofFlowDeflectionAngleat=2

The jet flow velocity Ujet was determined using the

resultsofthenojetairfoilcasescalculatedwithFluent.
The drag of nojet case, as an initial guess, was
substitutedinEq.(2)tosolvethejetvelocity.Thenthe
boundaryconditionscontainingtheinitialjetvelocity,

In this section an analysis of the impact of the jet

deflection angles on the performance and the flow
field at the angle of attack =2 has been performed.
Fig. 3 shows that when the jet angle is zero, the lift
coefficient, drag coefficient and liftdrag ratio at the

FIG.3AERODYNAMICPERFORMANCEVERSUSJETANGLEAT
DIFFERENTANGLESOFATTACK

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www.ijep.orgInternationalJournalofEnergyandPower(IJEP)Volume2Issue4,November2013

pressure gradient that the flow suffered grows along

with the peak pressure increasing. Consequently, the
boundary layer separation is easier to take place,
leadingtoanincreaseinthedrag.Fig.4showsthatthe
position of the suction peak moves toward the
downstream as the peak point increases when the jet
angle is increased, which brings about the drag
growth.Therefore,thedragcoefficientrisesalongwith
thejetangleincreasing.Theliftdragratioislimitedby
both lift and drag. Since the growth of lift is more
remarkable, although both lift and drag increase, the
liftdragratioimprovesalongwithincreasingangle.

angleofattack2areclosetothecasewithoutjet.With
the increasing jet angle, the lift and drag coefficient
increasesaswellasliftdragratio.Thusitisclearthat
the jet angle deflection plays an important role in the
effectivenessoftrailingedgejet.
Fig. 4 shows the pressure coefficient distributions in
several typical operating conditions, comparing the
casewithoutjetandthecasesofjetangle=10,0,5
and 15. It was indicated that the pressure coefficient
distributionsofthenojetcaseandzerojetanglecase
are nearly identical, which is consistent with the
conclusionobtainedfromFig.3.Whenthejetangleis
largerthan0,thesuctionpeakmovesrearwardsand
thepressuredifferentialbetweentheupperandlower
surfaceincreases,resultinginanincreaseinlift.Thisis
because the flow above the upper surface of the
trailing edge needs to bend downwards to follow the
jet direction when the jet angle is positive. This
produces an enhancement in velocity which entails a
reduction in pressure. In some way, the positive jet
deflectioncanbetakenasastructuralflapofanairfoil,
which raises the curvature of the airfoiljet system,
leadingtoariseincirculationandtherebythelift.Jet
deflection angle enhancement is equal to a further
increase in the curvature of the airfoil. Therefore,
greaterjetdeflectionangleleadstobettereffectoflift
perforamanceimprovement.Whenthejetangleisless
than 0, the flow above the upper surface of the
trailing edge slows down, and the pressure of the
upper surface grows, moving the suction peak
forward. At the lower surface, the flow is accelerated
nearthetrailingedge,whichreducesthepressureand
hasanimpactontheentirelowersurface,producinga
general reduction in compression along the low
surface. Hence, the decrease of area enclosed by Cp
curveleadstoaliftloss.

In the aspect of propulsion efficiency, the Froude

Propulsion Efficiency of a typical highbypassratio
turbofanisabout80%atMach0.85(HillPG,1992).Fig.
3(d) tells that the propulsion efficiency of the
distributed propulsion model in this paper is higher
thanthetypicaloneof80%overawidejetanglerange.
However, with the increase of the jet angle, the
propulsion efficiency is decreased. This is because
when the jet angle increases, the drag increases and
cos(+) decreases, resulting in an increase of the jet
velocity according to Eq. (2). With Eq. (4), it can be
obtainedthatpropulsionefficiencyandthejetvelocity
are negatively correlated,so the propulsion efficiency
descendswiththeincreaseingjetangle.
TheInfluenceofJetFlowatDifferentAngleofAttack

Analysis was carried out at three different angles of

attack: =0.6, =2, =4. Fig. 3(a) illustrates that CL
increases at all different attack angles along with the
rise of jet deflection angle. Meanwhile, remarkable
increase in CD versus cannot be observed as the
attack angles are insignificant (=0.6 or 2).
Nevertheless, drag coefficient rises rapidly when the
freestreamflowcomesatattackangleof4.
Machnumbercontourswithdifferentanglesofattack
at=10aregiveninFig.5.Asdemonstratedin(a)and
(b),whenrisesfrom0.6to2,theincreasingadverse
pressuregradientontheuppersurfaceisnotsufficient
to bring about the boundary layer separation.
Consequently, the difference of drag coefficient is
smallbetweenthetwoconditions,asillustratedinFig.
3(b).Astheangleofattackincreasesto=4,theshock
waveismovedrearwards,behindwhichtheboundary
layerseparationtakesplaceowingtothelargeadverse
pressure gradient as shown in Fig. 5(c). Thus, the
pressure drag arising from separation increases
significantly, resulting in remarkable rise in drag at
bigangleofattack,demonstratedinFig.3(b).

FIG.4PRESSURECOEFFICIENTWITHDIFFERENTJETANGLES
AT=2

In addition, the flow in the upper zone starts to

deceleratebehindthesuctionpeakpoint.Theadverse

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InternationalJournalofEnergyandPower(IJEP)Volume2Issue4,November2013www.ijep.org

Conclusions
This piece of work numerically investigated the
influence of jet flow with different jet angle on the
airfoil aerodynamic characteristics and propulsion
efficiency at different angles of attack. Conclusions
weredrawnasfollows:

(a)=0.6

(b)=2

1.Atsmallandmediumangleofattack,jetflowworks
best in improving the airfoil performance. The airfoil
keeps satisfactory aerodynamic characteristics as well
as propulsion efficiency over the range of jet angle
variation.

2. At relative big angle of attack, increasing jet

deflection angle plays an important role in upper
surface boundary layer separation. Lift coefficient
increases as well as drag coefficient, consequently
resulting in poor performance of liftdrag ratio and
propulsionefficiencyatbigjetdeflectionangle.

REFERENCES

Gohardani A S, Doulgeris G, Singh R. Challenges of future

aircraft propulsion: a review of distributed propulsion
technology and its potential application for the all
electric commercial aircraft[J]. Progress in Aerospace

(c)=4

Sciences,2011,47(5):369391.

Hill P G, Peterson C R. Mechanics and thermodynamics of

propulsion[M].NewYork:AddisonWesley,1992.

FIG.5MACHNUMBERCONTOURSWITHDIFFERENTANGLES
OFATTACKAT=10

Kim H D, Brown G V, Felder J L. Distributed turboelectric

SincethevariationtrendsofthecurvesofCLversus
aresimilaratthreedifferentattackangles,theliftdrag
ratio performances are dominated by the drag
coefficient characteristics. Thereby, the high increase
ofdragwithsmallchangeofliftleadstopoorliftdrag
ratio performance at =4, along with sharp
propulsion efficiency dropping, seen from Fig. 3(c)
and (d), while the low angles of attack have a good
liftdragratioandkeepthehighpropulsionefficiency
atdifferentjetdefectionangle.

propulsion for hybrid wing body aircraft [C]//2008

International Powered Lift Conference. London: Royal
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