Investigation of Reynolds Number Effects on Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Transport Aircraft

The scale difference between the real flight vehicle and experimental model results in Reynolds number effect, which makes it unreliable to predict aerodynamic characteristics of vehicles by wind tunnel testing. To understand mechanism effects on supercritical wing that is commonly used transport aircraft more detail, surface pressure tests a reference with wing-body configuration were conducted European Transonic Windtunnel (ETW) at different numbers. There are 495 taps total equipped test Mach numbers ranging from 0.6 0.86 varying 3.3 × 106 35 106. In addition, an in-house developed CFD tool has been validated extensive data was correct deformation effect achieve detailed flow structures. show significant impact boundary layer displacement thickness, distribution, shock wave position, overall force coefficients presence induced separation. combined fields achieved essence development, wave/boundary interaction, separation