Aerodynamic Effects of a Wing Surface Heat Exchanger

Abstract

One challenge for the design and analysis of hybrid electric aircraft configurations is an increased demand in the rejection of excess waste heat. A wing surface heat exchanger concept, which is explored as part of the IMOTHEP project, foresees transferring heat from the propulsive electrical components to the wing surface of the aircraft. Here, heat is mainly dissipated and transported by forced convection. The present study focuses on the analysis of the impact of heat rejection via the wing surface on the wing’s heat transfer and aerodynamic efficiency characteristics. For this purpose, RANS CFD studies of 2D airfoils and a 3D wing propeller geometry of a regional turboprop configuration in representative flight conditions (take off, cruise, and taxi in) are carried out. For each condition, the influence of defining parameters, such as altitude, freestream velocity, angle of attack, surface temperature, and propeller thrust is explored. It is shown that, when increasing the wing surface temperature compared against the freestream temperature, the aerodynamic efficiency of the wing deteriorates for all flight conditions. In reference cruise conditions for example, the lift-to-drag ratio decreases by 4%, while the average heat transfer coefficient is reduced by almost 20% when increasing the surface temperature by 300 K. Furthermore, the propeller slipstream enhances the wing’s heat transfer capacity significantly.

Keywords

• wing surface heat exchanger
• computational fluid dynamics
• heated boundary layer
• turbulent boundary layer
• hybrid electric aircraft
• IMOTHEP