Effect of Ventilation Ports on Pilot Cooling and Fuselage Drag of H.P. Airplane

Abstract

:We studied effect of ventilation ports on aerodynamics of the fuselage of a human-powered airplane and cooling performance of the pilot. An opening made in the fuselage is one of remedies for enhancing the performance of the pilot. On the other hand, the opening influences aerodynamic characteristics of the airplane, in particular the drag of the fuselage. When the ratio of inlet and outlet areas is larger than 3.0, the flux of air taken at the inlet is almost proportional to the area of inlet and depends weakly on the position and area of the outlet. Cooling of the pilot is estimated from the data of Nusselt number around the cylinder in the uniform flow at the Reynolds number defined by a velocity averaged over a cross section. An additive drag due to interaction between the injected flow from the outlets and the ambient flow around the fuselage depends strongly on the location of the outlet; the nearer to the trailing edge the outlet position moves, the less the drag increases.