Numerical Investigation of the airflow around a NACA 0012 airfoil

This research aimed to investigate the aerodynamic performance of the symmetric NACA 0012 airfoil under varying angles of attack using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). These simulations were run using ANSYS and OpenFOAM to analyze the behavior of aerodynamic forces, specifically lift and drag, pressure and skin friction coefficients, and various contours and streamline patterns. This study also investigates the angle of attack at which stalling conditions initiate. These cases were run using the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model at a fixed Reynolds number of 6 × 10^6 . These comparisons help us get a better understanding of the flow around the airfoil. ANSYS and OpenFOAM were used to run similar cases using the same solver setup, and the results for the aerodynamic forces closely aligned with each other and aerodynamic theory.