Maybe you guys tried to switch from SA turbulence modelling to something like K-Omega or K-epsilon? If all turbulence models give the same answer your source of problem has to be somewhere else :)

Thanks for pointing this out.

Joe, I need to use simpleFoam but I would like to compare my results with,preferably, published laminar airfoil data for validation.
Alternatively, I can use xfoil to get more realistic turbulent data.

Regardless, my numbers with OF are not even in the ballpark, and was hoping I made some silly mistake easily spotted by the sharp eyes here. Looks like the Cl is off by a factor of 10 for the 5 degree AOA study!

I hadn't thought of this. I'll try a different turbulence model and compare results. I have a SA run going on now.... I assume it should be to 20,000 iterations by the time I get out of work, it was at about 13,000 when I checked it before work this morning. After that finishes I'll try k-epsilon and compare with SA.

If you're off by a factor of 10, based on the only information you've provided, I think your span is the issue.

that would be nice, but if you look at the two files, the L and A ref are the same.

---edit: i got confused by the many type of foils this thread is about---

So I sort of had some success. I'm not calculating a lift coefficient of 0.9226 and a drag coefficient of 0.0089670 - agreeing very well with Abbot and Von Doenhoff. However, my nuTilda field looks kind of strange - check it out:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62138912/nuTilda.png

There are two patches meeting where all that turbulence has gathered. On the right patch nuTilda has a zeroGradient boundary condition and nut has a calculated boundary condition with value set to $internalField. On the upper patch nuTilda has a fixed value of zero and nut has a nutUSpaldingWallFunction boundary condition.

Does anybody know what's going on with nuTilda and nut here?

Hi JFerrari,
are you doing the mesh with blockMesh? You could use splines instead of straight edges when defining your blocks . This would allow you to have a better control on the orthogonality of your cells (specially in the boundary layer).
By the way, why do you use an O-Grid for this profile? Usually C-Grids are better for sharp trailing edges.
Greetings
Ivan

Hi Ivan,

I am meshing with blockMesh - though I hadn't thought using splines to make the block boundaries - I'll try that. The reason I'm using an O-grid is because ultimately I want to dynamically pitch the airfoil to study dynamic stall. I figure that my first step is to get accurate results for the steady case - then rotate the O-grid for the unsteady case.

Or at least that's my plan... Is this the best way to go about pitching the airfoil?

Hi Joe,
Interesting, actually I am trying to do exactly the same like you: dynamic stall studies on a pitching blade. My plan is also getting first decent results on a static case and then go for the rotating case.
The alternative to the O-Grid would be a C-Grid embedded in an O-Grid.
Greetings
Ivan

Interesting to find someone else working on exactly this, Ivan.

It's been a busy Easter weekend - I haven't gotten anything done since I last posted.

Currently I'm revisiting my mesh, trying to make it better.

Force coefficient
 

Hello

Once we try to calculate lift and drag coefficient with force command inside the controlDict of simplefoam, I encountered the error that force.c could not find rho. I like to know how I could get forces for incompressible flow solutions (done with simplefoam).

Thanks

Try it again including this in your controlDict
rhoName rhoInf;
rhoInf 1.225; //density of your fluid

Good luck
Ivan

Thanks a lot

A friend of mine has provided me with a beautiful structured mesh of a NACA 0012 airfoil in an O-grid I'll post a link to it when I'm home and have access to my files). He built it in gridgen and converted it to openfoam format, which created all boundaries as a single patch. I'm currently working to get this mesh more usable - using autoPatch and/or createPatch.


I just wanted to keep this thread updated for anyone following.

lift & drag coefficients
 

Hi
I'm a new user in OpenFOAM. I've run NACA0012 by using simpleFoam. I used a common file to compute lift and drag coefficients. but my lift and drag coefficients are too low. I think it is related to Aref & lref in computing the coefficients. could anyone tell me what should i do for Aref & lref?
thanks alot

Farshad, not sure what you mean by common file. You should be using the forces library that's already in OpenFOAM. If you think that the problem is with lref or Aref, you can compare those values to those that you have in your geometry.

Dear vkrastev,

My model is a 3D twisted and tapered blade. How could I get the Cl, Cd at specific section?


Best regards,
Qiang Wang

You should do a patch for the specific section you are interested in and then use the forces lib.
Greets
Ivan