Before Starting the description I want to thank my Thesis Supervisor Professor Dr. M.A. Taher Ali and my thesis mate Afjal Hossain and Taohid Islam Mim.

Thesis Topic: Influence of Surface Modification on NACA 0012 airfoil and manufacturing a three component balance with load cells using micro-controller.

Description: An experimental study was carried out to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics and performances of two modified NACA0012 airfoil with the conventional one.

One of the airfoil was modified by cutting three semicircular grooves and another one with elliptical shaped grooves on the upper surface throughout the span. The experiment was carried out using a low speed subsonic wind tunnel. Here are some findings of our thesis:

This graph shows that the airfoil with semicircular grooves shows better co-efficient of lift (Cl) than the conventional and modified airfoils. But the conventional airfoil produces less amount of co-efficient of drag (Cd) than the modified ones which is shown by the figure bellow:

To visualize the air flow patterns around the airfoils, a 3-tube Yaw Meter was used to collect experimental data and plot the velocity vectors at different height and positions. the vectors provide a brief idea about the change of air-flow patterns around the airfoil with the change of angle of attack. They also give idea about how the wake zone is created and how the turbulence is created there after certain angle of attack.

The velocity vector plot of NACA0012 airfoil at 10° angle of attack (AOA) and 25 m/s velocity is shown here. This helps to visualize the flow around the airfoil at different points.

Besides our undergrad thesis, a prototype of 3-component balance was manufactured to calculate the aerodynamic forces and moments acted on the airfoil inside the test section which is shown bellow:

We used local load cells, HX711 amplifier and an Arduino mega to build the measurement unit.