Application of potential flow solvers in micro air vehicle development for the use in atmospheric data collection

This study aims to assess the capability of potential flow solvers in predicting the aerodynamic performance of micro air vehicles (MAVs) by comparing the accuracy of traditional flow solvers with results obtained from SolidWorks Flow Simulation. Additionally, it includes a comparison of these computational findings with data gathered from wind tunnel tests, providing a practical benchmark for evaluating their real-world applicability. This study examined the effectiveness of potential flow solvers for lower Reynolds number, low aspect ratio wings. OpenVSP, XFLR5/XFOIL, and SolidWorks Flowsim were used to compare against experimental test data. Reynolds numbers tested ranged from 70,000 to 200,000. Wing planforms tested included Rectangular, Elliptical, and Inverse Zimmerman planforms. All of these wings had a cambered plate airfoil. Results showed that while the lower-order tools such as OpenVSP were not capable of providing realistic data, SolidWorks FlowSim provided data that closely followed the data used for reference. SolidWorks FlowSim generated accurate data for low Reynolds numbers low aspect ratio cambered wings.