Effect of wing-tip vortices on aerodynamic quantities of a NACA0012 wing*

The present work aims at investigating the formation of wing-tip vortices in a finite-span wing, studying their effect on the flow and the turbulent boundary layers developing on both the suction and pressure sides, and understanding their effect on the aerodynamic quantities of the wing. This is done by performing high-resolution large-eddy simulations of a NACA0012 profile at a chord-based Reynolds number of Re_c=200,000, where many of the relevant quantities are compared between an infinite-span wing (i.e., periodic in the spanwise direction) and a finite-span wing with rounded wing-tip geometry. The simulations are performed using the high-order spectral-element code Nek5000 with adaptive-mesh-refinement (AMR) capabilities to achieve a high accuracy at an affordable computational cost. Our analysis will compare turbulence statistics around the wing and in the wake of both wings, power-spectral densities, as well as an assessment of the characteristics of the wing-tip vortices.