A PIV STUDY ON A DELTA WING(LEX) MODEL FLOW IN MODERN AIRCRAFT

Highly swept leading edge extensions(LEX) applied to delta wings have greatly improved the subsonic maneuverability of contemporary fighters. Fundamental approach by PIV method was adopted to study the basic flow of the vortex pair formation appearing on a delta wing model with or without LEX. Three angles of attacks$(16^{\circ},\;24^{\circ},\;28^{\circ})$ and four measuring section of chord length(LEX-on) and three section(LEX-off) were selected as experimental conditions. From the PIV analysis, maximum vorticity was found at a given chord length and maximum velocity was also detected at larger chord length where stronger vortex was generated. Furthermore, the effect of LEX was remarkable at the vortex pair distance indicating narrower distance at LEX-on case.