. Vol.21 No.2 , July - December 2018.

Aircraft Wheel Fairing Airflow Simulation

Rapee Ujjin and Choosak Ngaongam

Abstract

       Fixed landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft that is used for supporting aircraft on ground, during takeoff and landing, which is always in the extended position and cannot be retracted. It consequences in an increasing of drag during flight. Wheel fairing is then usually equipped that has primary function of reducing parasitic drag force. The objective of this paper is to determine drag force from wheel fairing by using computational fluid dynamics analysis. The results from 3 types of wheel fairing simulation, which have different shape and design, will be compared to unfaired wheel result. The simulation result showed that parasite drag depends upon frontal area and designing shape. Drag force of the wheel can be reduced up to 63% or 2/3 when comparing to wheel without using fairing. It can be concluded that from the 3 types of aircraft that install high efficient wheel fairing, once cruising at the best range speed, the lower of fuel consumption can be achieved because of lower of total drag of the aircraft, which consequent in better range.

Keywords: Parasite drag, Wheel fairing, Computational fluid dynamics

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