Description

The NACA airfoils are airfoil shapes for aircraft wings developed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, former NASA) in the 1940s. The four digit series define the profile by describing its maximum camber, the location of the maximum camber and the airfoil’s maximum thickness. The NACA 0012 is a symmetrical airfoil frequently used for benchmarking test cases.

In this test case, the Mach number is high enough to reach the so called transonic flow. Transonic flow occurs when there is mixed subsonic and supersonic local flow in the same flow field (typically with free stream Mach numbers from M = 0.7 or 0.8 to 1.3). When flowing over the airfoil’s surface, the flow will accelerate and become locally supersonic resulting in potential normal shock waves on the upper camber and lower camber. As in this particular test case, the flow will be considered inviscid, no boundary layer will be developed on the airfoil’s surface.

References :

D. L. Bonhaus, A HIGHER ORDER ACCURATE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR VISCOUS COMPRESSIBLE FLOWS, PhD thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1998.