ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECT OF RUDDER GEOMETRY MODIFICATION ON THE HINGE MOMENT COEFFICIENT AND AERODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE N-XXX AIRCRAFT USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35261/barometer.v11i2.13201Abstract
Recent research shows that modifying the control surface geometry has the potential to improve the aerodynamic characteristics of aircraft. The N-XXX pioneer aircraft is equipped with primary control surfaces consisting of ailerons, elevators, and rudders that function to regulate the basic movement of the aircraft. The rudder plays a role in generating yaw movement by generating side forces and hinge moments on the hinge line. The increase in aerodynamic response due to geometry modifications can have a direct impact on directional stability and pilot control loads. This study aims to analyze the effect of a 10% increase in rudder chord on the side force coefficient (CY), drag coefficient (CD), and hinge moment coefficient (CHe) with deflection variations of 0˚, 20˚, and -20˚ using the computational fluid dynamics method. The research stages include geometric modeling, meshing process, numerical simulation, and analysis of the results to obtain the resulting aerodynamic characteristics. The simulation results show that the rudder with a 10% increase in chord consistently increases the hinge moment coefficient across all deflection variations. At 0˚ deflection, the increase reaches approximately 25.8% at a sideslip angle of 10˚. At a 20˚ deflection with a 0˚ sideslip angle, the increase reached 26.7% and at a -20˚ deflection with a 0˚ sideslip angle, the increase reached 26.4%. The side force coefficient increased almost linearly with the sideslip angle, while the drag coefficient increased due to the increase in effective area and changes in pressure distribution. These findings indicate that increasing the rudder area effectively improves the aerodynamic response of the control surface, but implies an increase in control loads that must be anticipated in the design of the aircraft control system.
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References
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