Drag reduction and high-lift improvement of UAV-airfoils through boundary-layer suction/blowing

The final goal of this research project is to highlight the practical feasibility, advantages and limits of some of the active flow control techniques such as turbulent steady suction and unsteady blowing. The investigation will also cover aspects connected to the practical implementation of these techniques on a real flying UAV wing pointing out all technical problems related to its applications. In this paper the design of a small airfoil model to perform preliminary wind tunnel test for steady suction and unsteady blowing is presented together with numerical analysis and first experimental results on steady suction applied to the rear part of the airfoil. At the end, it is also illustrated the near future test on unsteady blowing together with preliminary considerations on rotating valve-tube-actuator system and design.