Fluid Mechanics Term Paper

November 21, 2018

Effects of Varying Geometry And Orientation

In Simulated Fluid Flow at Low Reynolds Numbers
Weihao Huang, Lauren Hummel, Tony Qiu, Matthew Yu

Understanding high lift generation and drag reduction for small bodies at low Reynolds
numbers(Re) is key in microrobotics design. To further our understanding of the kinematical
characteristics and aerodynamics around microgeometries at low Reynolds values, we conducted
a simulation through COMSOL to analyze low values aerodynamic characteristics of the NACA
0012 airfoil, a 2D cylindrical post, and a 3D sphere. Through many trials, the Reynolds number
was independently varied from 0.1 to 1000 to simulate laminar flow. For the NACA 0012 airfoil,
the angle of attack covered the range of 0, 3, 5, 9, and 12 degrees. Analysis of the data showed
that changes in Reynolds number effect the maximum drag coefficient and the drag force. In
reality, changes in Reynolds number affect all parameters to some extent. Unsteady flow could
not be observed for Re = 100 for an airfoil. We speculate that this is due to the airfoil being
designed to avoid unstable flows in the first place, so unless a high Reynolds number is applied,
we would not observe any unstable flows​. H ​ owever, we were able to observe unstable flow
around the 3D sphere at a Reynolds number of 100.

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 I. Introduction
When discussing the topic of flight, one usually considers large vehicles, such as
airplanes, that fly by generating high lift/drag differentials at high reynolds numbers (Re).
However, nature has created extremely small organisms, called microorganisms, that are capable
of flight at very low Re. Some of these organisms, such as fruit flies, have the ability to generate
the perfect amount of lift and drag despite low Re. While difficult, designing microrobots with
this ability is of great interest and use to many industries. For one, if engineers can design
microrobots that are capable of travel at low Re, such as the bloodstream, hospitals can inject
these robots into patients to deliver non-invasive treatment1.
To study the effects of laminar flow around very small geometries, we utilized
COMSOL, a multiphysics simulation tool. These geometries include the NACA 0012 airfoil
section, a 2D cylindrical post, and a 3D sphere. Specifically, we computed the drag force and
drag coefficient, along with the lift force and lift coefficient of these geometries, under low Re,
to study how different geometries induce different quantities of lift and drag. Furthermore, the
occurrence of unsteady behavior during laminar flow is of great interest and is further explored
in multiple time-dependent studies. By performing this study, we hope to further our
understanding of lift/drag generation of small geometries at low Re so that we may design
microdevices with flight characteristics.

II. Methods
We used COMSOL to simulate flow around different geometries at different Re. The
drag force and its coefficient on the airfoil and circular post were evaluated by computing the
force along the x-axis. The drag force and its coefficient on the sphere were evaluated by
computing the force along the y-axis. The axis was oriented so that the horizontal axis was the
y-axis and the vertical axis was the z-axis (figure 1).
We used a set of boundary conditions for all of our trials in the COMSOL simulations.
One of these conditions was the no slip boundary condition on the walls; this condition allowed
us to eliminate any edge effects that may have affected our results. Furthermore, the channels
were designed to be much larger than the bodies being tested meaning a much longer channel
and much wider width and height. The gage pressure at the outlet was set to zero to prevent any
adverse effects varying the flow results. The velocity profile was declared at the input, which
was always positive and normal to the face of the geometry to ensure steady and uniform fluid
flow throughout the channel. To achieve different Re, we calculated the corresponding velocity
for each desired value and varied the inlet velocity accordingly. The fluid, air, was declared to
have a constant density at 1.225 kg/m​3​ and viscosity of 1.48e10​-3​. With these boundary
conditions, we created simulations of time-dependent and laminar single phase fluid flow.
After obtaining a better understanding of flow behavior in two dimensions, we hoped to
further our knowledge to three dimensions by applying similar simulation conditions to a sphere.
In addition, we elected not to consider the effects at exactly 0 seconds because the fluid had not
made contact with the body. Furthemore, a large simulation time scale was used to reach steady
state. The times were varied for each simulation to ensure efficiency and reliable results.

For the different geometries tested, each procedure is as follows:

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​Non-invasive compared to open surgery
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Cylindrical Disk
A 2D simulation was done for a cylindrical disk, with a 1.0 cm diameter, in a channel
with a length of 200 cm and width of 100 cm. The time range used to achieve the steady flow
conditions was from 0 to 2400 seconds with a time step of 1 second. By having smaller time
steps we were able to more accurately identify the drag and lift forces imposed on the disk. Since
this is a 2D simulation, the characteristic length was used instead of the surface area. Using the
characteristic length implies a thickness of one unit length.

Sphere
A 3D time dependent simulation was done for a 1.0 cm diameter sphere to determine the
effect of the same Re used above, along with Re of 250 and 500, on the air flow around a sphere.
The channel was of length 140 cm, width 14 cm, and height 14 cm. Unlike the other geometries,
the inlet velocity field in the y-direction was set to be the desired velocity; this decision was
made after realizing that setting the normal inflow velocity generated unreasonable numbers in a
3D simulation. The simulations for the sphere were run from time 0 to 1000 seconds with a time
step of 10 seconds. To verify our simulation method, we compared our data with NASA’s
“coefficient of drag vs Re of a sphere” graph (figure 2).

NACA 0012 Airfoil

We performed 2D simulations for the NACA 0012 airfoil profile with a thickness of
0.1m and a length of 1m at Re varying from 50 to 500 along with additional Re values of greater
magnitude (1000, 2000, and 3000) to observe transitional flows. The channel had a height and
width of 4m and 10m, respectively. We also observed the effects of flow on the airfoil at
multiple angles of attack, including 3, 5, 9, and 12 degrees. We accomplished this by rotating the
geometry in DraftSight before importing it into COMSOL.

III. Results
In order to further our understanding of fluid flow around complex geometries, we
compared the drag forces and coefficients of the sphere, circle, and the zero angle airfoil case for
multiple Re.

Sphere
First, we aimed to prove and verify the drag data collected by NASA. Overall, it can be
seen that for our graph and NASA’s graph are similar. Comparing Re of 0 to 5 to their respective
coefficients of drag, both graphs follow an inverse log function trend converging to zero. For Re
less than 1, the trend between the Stoke’s equation and collected data are similar. For Re values
greater than and equal to 10, both graphs followed a logarithmic trend. Because we ran an
idealized simulation, our results do not precisely match the values supplied by the Stoke’s
equation.
After validating the data, we performed a 3D time dependent simulation to prove and
further our understanding of the known trend of drag forces on a sphere. Additionally, the time
dependent solutions allowed us to determine how much time is needed for the fluid to reach

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steady state. From figure 20a and 20b, it can be seen that it takes less time to reach steady state at
higher Re than the time it takes for lower quantities; for values in the range of 1 to 10, it takes
significantly longer to reach steady state than in values less than 1 or greater than 10. This
follows engineering intuition because at higher Re, the velocities are greater so it takes less time
for the velocity field to become uniform.
After running our simulations, we generated the streamlines and pressure profiles of the
various Re. Upon collecting and comparing images from figure 4a to 4k, it is clear that the flow
over the sphere does not become unsteady. Furthermore, for all of the values we tested, there
were no signs of turbulence; this made sense since turbulence typically begins to occur at Re of
approximately 2300. Instead, separation began to occur after hitting a Re of 1. The pressure
profiles proved to all be extremely similar in presentation but for higher Re, the greater velocities
resulted in higher pressure on the sphere's surface. Another note is that the streamlines along the
sphere at low Re, such as figure 4a, show much more curvature in the lines near the walls of the
channel than the streamlines at the same point in time for a higher Re as seen in figure 4k. This is
most likely due to the fluid above travelling slow enough to be affected by the curved fluid flow
below it.

NACA 0012 Airfoil @ 0 degree

For the velocity profiles at Re from 50 to 500, we found that the streamlines were all
similar (Figures 10 and 13). The main difference is that for higher Re, the magnitude of the
velocity is generally greater. The streamlines bent around the airfoil where its curves exhibit
similar geometry as the airfoil. For the pressure profile, we saw that there was a concentration of
high pressure concentrated at the front of the airfoil and an area of low pressure after the flow
passes the front (Figures 14). These results seem logical since the fluid impacts the airfoil at that
area. There was also low pressure past the front of the airfoil because the flow was not colliding
with other parts of the airfoil due to its angle of attack of zero degrees. For laminar Re, from 50
to 800, the airfoil at an angle of attack of zero degrees exhibits smooth streamlines and contained
pressure contours. We could not observe a form of turbulent fluid flow at the end of the airfoil at
this angle of attack even when we went to a Re of 5000. This may be due to an airfoil being
designed specifically to avoid turbulent flow when it’s in level flight, aka a zero degree angle of
attack.

Disk
For the disk, we saw that it follows a linear trend, a.k.a the Stoke’s Law, for small Re (0.2
to 1). This is shown in Figure 16. We tested this disk at slightly higher Re (50, 80 and 100) as
well and saw that the coefficient of drag no longer decreases in a linear fashion. It decreases
similarly to how the sphere graph does, albeit with a different function. We were also able to see
that there were some lift forces acting on the disk but since they were so small, we considered
them to be negligible. These lift forces are present only because fluid hits the bottom half of the
curvature. The bottom half is similar to that of an airfoil in that the area underneath it allows the
fluid to catch and push up the disk. However the same forces are counteracting on the top half as
drag due to the symmetric nature of the disk. Hence, we can neglect lift in our studies.
With increasing Re, we observe that the velocity streamline gathers closer to the circular
post and creates a curvature that is closer and closer to the shape of our post. At the critical Re of

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100, it can be observed that an unstable flow occurs at the back of the circular post, shown in
Figure 18i.
In Figure 15, it is noted that the normal stress seems to be smaller than the shear stresses
at the circular post’s top and bottom vertices. This can be contributed to the fact that it is at a low
Re of 0.2. Therefore, the initial impact of the fluid at the face of the circular post is low but after
it moves around the surface, it experiences spatial acceleration and hence the shear stress at the
top and bottom vertices are higher.

Sphere vs. Airfoil

When comparing the values of the 0 degree angle of attack to the values of drag on a
sphere the two trend lines are similar. Referring to the table in figure 19, you can see the slight
variation in the values going along the trend line. In the sphere and 0 degree airfoil case there are
also no lift forces acting on the the bodies. This is due to the symmetric properties along the
normal axis of both the sphere and 0 angle of attack foil. It is also important to note that there is
no instability for the Re we tested. The reason that there are not planes made with airfoils that
have a 0 degree angle of attack is due to this lack of lift forces at low Re.
Looking at the streamlines for the sphere in figures 4a-4k, the streamlines follow the
curvature of the sphere’s body up to the walls of the channel. The 0 degree airfoil shows similar
behavior in figure 10. However, the radius of curvature of the airfoil is much less than that of the
sphere and as a result, the curvature of the streamlines far from the sphere is more significant
than that of far from the airfoil.

Sphere vs. Disk

The sphere and disk have very similar area terms considering their circular nature, and
considering the other terms included in the coefficient of drag are the same for both, it would
only make sense that they present similar trends. In this case, there are bound to be variations in
values, but that is primarily due to the differing dimensionality. The disk is in 2D and the sphere
in 3D so the characteristic length is used in the disk case vs. one half of the surface area of the
sphere. The sphere and the disk also differ in their diameter and this would case for a greater
variation in values for comparison. This diameter difference only affects the magnitude of the
values compared to the sphere with a 1 cm diameter.
Looking at figure 3 it can be seen that we obtained a reasonable trendline for the disk
which is very similar to the sphere’s curve from Re of 0 to 1. The sphere and the disk both
follow Stoke’s equation from 0 to 1. The two sets of points do not overlap in figure 3 because the
diameters are different making the trend translate lower than the trend of the sphere.

Disk vs. 0 degree Airfoil

We observed that the disk displays turbulence at a Re of 100, but the 0 degree angle of
attack airfoil does not exhibit any noticeable turbulence at our tested Re (0 to 2000). This can be
explained by comparing the geometry of both studies. The geometry of circular post makes it so
that as the fluid travels along the path of the surface of the geometry, the top and bottom fluid
collide into each other, where at slightly higher Re, this would cause turbulent flow. However,
the fluid travelling along the zero degree airfoil surface does not experience this collision
because the zero degree airfoil gradually tapers off into a corner at the end of its geometry. This

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allows the fluid to travel approximately horizontally at the end when it leaves the airfoil, hence
the top fluid would continue flowing horizontally and not collide with the bottom fluid.

Effects of Angle of Attack and Reynolds Number on Airfoil

As the airfoil angle of attack increases, the coefficient of drag increases, as shown in
Figure 6. This makes sense because as the angle of attack increases, angle of attack of the frontal
area also increases. The frontal area is the effective area normal to the direction of the flow.
Since a greater magnitude of the flow is hitting the airfoil directly, greater drag forces are
induced. We also found that lift forces are practically nonexistent when the airfoil is at an angle
of attack of zero degrees; however, as the angle of attack increases, the lift forces, and thus, the
coefficient of lift also increase. We can confirm the validity of our results when comparing our
C​l​/C​d​ vs. Angle of Attack chart (Figure 5) against those produced by Zwierzchowski et al (2).
Our plot behavior is similar, and the inaccuracies can be blamed on the fact that our results were
generated from a maximum Re of 500, whereas, the reference charts used Re several magnitudes
larger.
Observing the effect of Re on drag, we find that as Re increases, the coefficient of drag
(C​d​) decreases (Figure 7). This is appropriate because as we increase the velocity of our fluid, the
effective drag in each time step is smaller and hence the C​d​ would be smaller. Although the
magnitude of drag forces also increase with Re, so does the velocity. When checking the
equation to calculate C​d​, we find that velocity has the greatest influence on its value; the
coefficient of drag is dependent on a relation of the drag force over the velocity squared.
We have established that both drag and lift forces increase as the angle of attack
increases; however, the rate at which they increase is also dependent on the Re. As the Re
increases, the rate at which lift forces increase is faster than that of drag forces up to a certain
angle of attack. As seen between Figures 11a and 11b, the magnitude of lift forces surpasses
those of drag at lower angles of attack. We also observe that at as angle of attack increases even
more, the drag forces become stronger than the lift forces. For practical use, this means that to
maximize lift for an airfoil, there is an optimal angle of attack for varying Re (see Figures 5 and
12).
Earlier, we observed that turbulence could not be achieved with the NACA 0012 airfoil at
a zero degree angle of attack due to its symmetric tapered geometry; however, when a flow is
applied at a non-zero angle, the airfoil exhibits non-laminar behavior (Figures 8 and 9). Starting
at Re of around 400 to 500, we notice turbulent flow directly above the NACA 0012 airfoil when
set at an angle of attack at 12 degrees.

IV. Concluding Remarks

The concept of directional control of microdevices with the ability of flight is a relatively
new concept. The feasibility of this concept was demonstrated by Piccolissimo, the smallest
self-powered robot which measured just 39 mm in diameter and 19 mm in height. (3) The
potential benefits of microdevices with this ability have been predicted by many scholars. One of
the benefits include controlling the movement of a medicinal capsule to deliver the appropriate
medicine to a designated area inside the body. Therefore the aerodynamics of micro-geometries
under low Re must be further explored if we are to accelerate the advent of flying microdevices.

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Appendix

Figure 1: Axis oriented so that the drag force was computed as the force in the y-direction in 3D

Figure 2. Re vs Cd around a sphere

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 Figure 3: Stress around a Circular Post at Re = 0.2

Figure 4a: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 0.2

Figure 4b: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 0.5

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Figure 4c: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 0.95

Figure 4d: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 1

Figure 4e: Streamline of flow around a sphere at Re = 3

Figure 4f: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 5

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Figure 4g. Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 10

Figure 4h: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 50

Figure 4i: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 100

Figure 4j: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 250

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Figure 4k: Streamline of flow around sphere at Re = 500

​Figure 5: Cl​ /C
​ d​ ​ vs. Airfoil angle of attack

Figure 6: Cd​ ​ vs. Airfoil angle of attack

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 Figure 7: Cd​ ​ vs Re for NACA 0012 with 0 degree angle of attack

Figure 8: Streamlines around NACA 0012 at 12 deg AoA at Re = 400

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Figure 9: Streamlines around NACA 0012 at 12 deg AoA at Re=500

Figure 10: 0 degrees Airfoil Velocity Streamline at Re = 500.

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 Figure 11a: Drag and Lift forces for varying angles of attack at Re=50

Figure 11b: Drag and Lift forces for varying angles of attack for Re=400

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 Figure 12: Cl​ /C
​ d​ ​ vs Angle of Attack for Re=50 and Re=400

Figure 13a: 0 degrees: Airfoil Velocity Streamline at Re = 50

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Figure 13b: 0 degrees: Airfoil Velocity Streamline at Re = 100

Figure 14a: 0 degrees: Airfoil Pressure Contour at Re = 50

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Figure 14b: 0 degrees: Airfoil Pressure Contour at Re = 500

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 Figure 15: Stress on circular post

Figure 16: Cd vs Re of Flow Around Circular Post

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Figure 17a: Circular Post: Pressure Contour at Re = 0.5

Figure 17b: Circular Post: Pressure Contour at Re = 100

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Figure 18a: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 0.2

Figure 18b: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 0.5

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Figure 18c: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 0.95

Figure 18d: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 1

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 Figure 18e: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 3

Figure 18f: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 5

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Figure 18g: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 50

Figure 18h: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 80

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 Figure 18i: Circular Post: Velocity Streamline at Re = 100

Reynolds Number C​d​ on Sphere(approx.) C​d​ on 0 Degree Angle of Attack Airfoil

50 1.5 1.9

100 0.9 1.19

150 0.65 0.918

250 0.65 0.666

300 0.55 0.597

400 0.5 0.505

500 0.45 0.444

Figure 19: Table of values of sphere vs. 0 degree airfoil angle of attack

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Figure 20a: Drag Force vs. Time at Reynolds number of 0.5

Figure 20a: Drag Force vs. Time at Reynolds number of 500

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References

1. Ladson, C. Effects of Independent Variation of Mach and Reynolds Numbers on the

Low-Speed Aerodynamic Characteristics of the NACA 0012 Airfoil Section. ​NASA.
[Online] 1988 ​https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19880019495.pdf
(accessed Nov 19, 2018).
2. Zwierzchowski, J.; Laski, P. A.; Blasiak, S.; Takosoglu, J. E.; Pietrala, D. S.; Bracha, G.
F.; Nowakowski, L. ​EPJ Web of Conferences 2​ 017, ​143,​ 4–4.
3. University of Pennsylvania. Grasp Lab: General robotics, automation, sensing &
perception laboratory at Penn.
https://www.grasp.upenn.edu/news/guinness-recognizes-piccolissimo-world%E2%80%9
9s-smallest-self-powered-flying-robot (accessed Nov 19, 2018).
4. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Drag of a Sphere. [Online]
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/dragsphere.html

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