Aerodynamic Performance Prediction of a Profile in Ground Effect

A very detailed experimental case of a reversed profile in ground effect has been selected in the open literature and the available experimental data have been used as reference data for CFD analysis. The CFD approach has been used to predict the aerodynamic performance of the profile at different heights with respect to the ground: from the freestream case (no ground effect) to a low height where the stall on the suction surface limits the profile operation. Different CFD codes have been used starting with a well-known commercial code to different open source codes. The set of analysis with the commercial code has allowed the setup of the mesh to have the best accuracy from the simulations. The same grids have been used for the other codes in order to directly compare the solver properties without mesh influence. The results obtained by the codes are compared and discussed.