Effect of Gurney Flap on Airfoil Lift Coefficient by Design of Experiment (DOE) Method

In this paper, the effect of the Gurney flap parameters such as the angle of attack, Reynolds number, angle and height of the flap and its location from the escape edge on the lift coefficient of a symmetric airfoil is considered with the help of simulation in computational fluid dynamic software of Fluent. The turbulence model k-ε is used for the two-dimensional domain. Also, the value of the lift coefficient is introduced as a function of effective parameters by the design of experiment (DOE) method and using the backward elimination regression model which is a statistical method for selecting the model and estimated error terms. The value of the airfoil lift coefficient can be determined and predicted by the obtained function. The numerical values derived from the function of the lift coefficient resulted from the design of experiment method are in good agreement with other valid papers. The results show that at the constant attack angle by increasing Gurney flap height, lift coefficient increase. On the other hand, at the constant height of the Gurney flap, this coefficient decreases with increasing angle of attack. Moreover, the lift coefficient increased by increasing the distance of the Gurney flap from the airfoil escape edge at a 90-degree angle and 1.5%, as well as increasing the Reynolds number at a constant height of a Gurney flap.