• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.18
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• pp.335-341
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• 1998

A numerical investigation was performed to determine the effect of a Gurney flap on a NACA 23012 airfoil. A Navier-Stokes code, RAMPANT, was used to calculate the flow field about airfoil. The fully turbulent results were obtained using the standard $k-{\varepsilon}$ two-equation turbulence model. To provide a check case for our computational method, computations were performed for NACA 4412 airfoil which compared with Wedcock's experimental data. Gurney flap sizes of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2% of the airfoil chord were studied. The numerical solutions showed the Gurney flap increased both lift and drag. These results suggested that the Gurney flap served to increased the effective camber of the airfoil. But Gurney flap provided a significant increase in lift-to-drag ratio relatively at low angle of attack and for high lift coefficient. Also, it turned out that 0.5% chord size of flap was best one among them.