Dennis Román | Project Portfolio

CFD Lab

CFD Lab: Transonic NACA 0012 Airfoil Analysis

AE 4699 transonic airfoil assignment using ANSYS Fluent to study Mach and pressure-field behavior with validation-oriented coefficient reporting.

ANSYS FluentAirfoil CFDCompressible Aerodynamics
NACA0012 velocity vector contour

Added figure: velocity vectors colored by velocity magnitude around NACA 0012.

Snapshot

  • Course/Lab: AE 4699 CFD Lab
  • Case type: Transonic external aerodynamics (NACA 0012)
  • Solver: ANSYS Fluent (density-based setup)
  • Primary focus: Mach/pressure field behavior and coefficient validation structure

Mission and setup

  • Build a transonic airfoil case with consistent numerical settings across alpha values.
  • Capture core outputs for interpretation and comparison:
    • Mach-number contours
    • Static-pressure contours
    • CL and CD trends vs angle of attack
  • Keep assignment reporting aligned to validation expectations.

What I executed

  • Configured density-based transonic setup with compressible gas modeling.
  • Built and validated fine mesh baseline around NACA 0012 geometry.
  • Ran angle-of-attack cases and extracted coefficient tables.
  • Organized outputs into comparison plots for fast trend reading.

Results and engineering takeaways

  • Transonic field behavior is captured with clear regime-sensitive contour changes.
  • Fine mesh setup provides a stable baseline for coefficient trend comparison.
  • CL/CD reporting structure supports direct validation against reference data.
  • Assignment reinforced coefficient-first communication for aerodynamic decisions.

Validation and verification notes

  • Used planned validation plots (CL-alpha and CL-CD) as acceptance criteria.
  • Checked output consistency across all alpha cases in one standardized table.
  • Maintained one numerical setup template to reduce case-to-case drift.

Reproducibility notes

  • Mesh parameters and solver model choices documented in report slides.
  • Post-processing sequence repeated identically for each angle-of-attack run.
  • Slide deck structure reused for setup, convergence, and final metric reporting.

Validation

  • CL vs alpha and CL vs CD comparison plan

    pass

  • Coefficient table consistency across alpha cases

    pass

Reproducibility

  • Model specification captured upfront

    Solver, gas model, viscosity model, and schemes documented in setup.

  • Consistent alpha-based reporting

    Same plot/metric package produced for each angle-of-attack case.

  • Tutorial-aligned mesh baseline

    Mesh definition recorded with element count and division settings.