Fabrication of NACA4412 Airfoil Model by CAE for Wind Tunnel Tests

In the present paper, a ACA4412 airfoil section has been designed and fabricated for 2D wind tunnel tests using
Computer Aided Engineering facilities. 240 surface points are generated to produce the profile of the airfoil using CompuFoil software. The surface points are fed to CATIA software for preliminary design criteria. Then, it transferred to Mastercam software to prepare the CC production procedure. 51/2 axis CC machine is used to produce six subsections of the airfoil. They
are assembled to produce 297 mm span wise model with 105 mm chord length. The model is subjected to surface roughness test and was found to have 2.2 µm average surface roughnesses. The fabricated model is subjected to static test to guarantee its strength to stand the aerodynamic forces during the wind tunnel test. The model is installed in low speed wind tunnel and a contractor is attached to the model to measure the different angles of attack during the tests. The forces producing lift, drag and pitching
moment were measured.

Keywords:
Experimental modeling, NACA4412 Airfoil section, Aerodynamic characteristics, CNC machining.