Performance of the Airbus A320 Aircraft Model using Water Tunnel

In studying the flow and effects of airflow on an aircraft of a certain design, several simulation tool are used. Among them are wind tunnel, water tunnel, and CFD simulation. The reasons for using the test simulation tool are to save costs, time, and energy. It is because there is no need to make an aircraft under study with real dimensions and components. In this study, the Airbus A320 aircraft model was tested using a water tunnel and CFD simulations on the Ansys fluent application where it is believed that these two methods are one of two ways to determine coefficient of lift, coefficient of drag, and visualize the vortex that occurs when the aircraft is operating. The experiment was carried out using a water tunnel and numerical simulation on the Ansys fluent application with a design size of 1:185 in its original size. The test is carried out to determine the value of the coefficient of lift and coefficient of drag from the aircraft model design, from the coefficient of lift it is obtained what is the maximum angle before the stall of the aircraft. From testing using a water tunnel, the stall angle of the aircraft is found at 14° with a maximum coefficient of lift value of 1.379. In the numerical simulation using the fluent Ansys application, the stall angle of the aircraft is found at 13° with a maximum coefficient of lift value of 1.21. The value of the coefficient of drag in both tests obtained a value of about 0.2 at a variation of the angle of attack 0° and increases exponentially as the angle of attack increases. © 2024 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.