Conceptual Design and Numerical Simulation of a Novel Main Wing Controllable Lift Structure for an Underwater Glider

Borrowing from the appendage structure design in the aeronautics research field, this paper applies the Gurney flaps structure to the underwater glider with the design purpose of improving the lift-to-drag ratio. Firstly, we verified the lift enhancement effect of the Gurney flaps structure in the aqueous medium by the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation method. Secondly, we analyzed the effect of fixed Gurney flaps on the lift-to-ratio performance of the glider during the whole glide cycle. The results show that the fixed Gurney flaps can only help to improve the lift-to-drag ratio for half cycle, that is, a descent or ascent phase. With this, we proposed a novel controllable Gurney flaps structure that is compatible with the gliding process of the glider. The simulation results show that the novel structure can effectively improve the lift-to-drag ratio performance of the glider in a whole glide cycle. At the same angle of attack, the new structure improved the lift-to-drag ratio by a maximum of 68.9% compared with the original main wing.