Effect of Gurney Flaps on Aft Swept Wings

The effect of Gurney flaps on lift augmentation has been tested and documented widely in the aerospace community. However, a literature survey shows no published results on the effect of Gurney flaps on aft swept wings for low Reynolds numbers. Swept wings are commonly used on commercial airliners. If found effective, Gurney flaps would serve as a cheap geometric modification to achieve significant lift augmentation. The objective of this project will be to bridge this gap in the industry through wind tunnel testing multiple configurations of Gurney flaps on three different sweep angles of the wing: 0deg, 45deg and 60 deg. The lengths of the Gurney flaps tested will be zero, two and four percent of the chord of the wing. The testing will be done at a Reynolds number of 100,000 and 150,000 respectively. A wedge wing and a S8036 airfoil wing (both rapid prototyped) will be used for wind tunnel testing. The wedge wing testing and analysis have been completed. From the initial testing of the wedge wing, it was found that the highest lift augmentation was found for the 4 percent Gurney flap case, which was the highest length Gurney flap tested. Ignite Grant Awar