Designing Turbulators to Improve Aerodynamic Performance of Martian UAVs

Overview

With the first flight of the Ingenuity helicopter and a Mars landing on the horizon, there has been a surge in research focused on optimizing the wings and rotors of UAVs designed to fly on Mars. This work aims to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of airfoils designed for flight in the Martian atmosphere by making small changes to the surface geometry. Given the difficulty of testing in an adequate wind tunnel, this project was done using computational fluid dynamics, which utilizes the Navier–Stokes equations to model fluid flow. A wall-resolved large eddy simulation using the WALE subgrid model and bounded second-order implicit numerical scheme was utilized. A mesh sensitivity study involving meshes with different numbers of cells and boundary layer refinement was then conducted to ensure that the final solution was accurate and independent from the mesh parameters. The baseline ROAMX-0201, NASA’s cutting edge new airfoil, was then run, and the simulation accuracy was validated with wind tunnel data. This baseline was then modified with various turbulators, and resulting simulations indicated a performance improvement of over 13% compared to the ROAMX-0201. The turbulator clearly trips the separated shear layer into discrete vortex shedding with both increased frequency and intensity. The additional energy and momentum carried by these vortices also allows them to remain significantly more attached to the airfoil surface, improving overall aerodynamic performance. These turbulators represent a practical way to improve the aerodynamic performance of Martian UAVs without added power, mechanical complexity, or weight. Additionally, this technology has many applications to drones on Earth, as well as hypersonic vehicles.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Applied Mechanics (Senior Division) · Entry S-02-23

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