Lift distribution based design of two-dimensional sections

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A lift distribution based section design method has been proposed. Through Newton-Raphson iterations, the section geometry is efficiently designed to meet the requirements for total lift and lift distribution. The effect of fluid viscosity on total lift is taken into account by coupling Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation with the potential-flow based design procedure. The present method avoids the difficulty of assigning velocity or pressure distributions on section surfaces. As the loading and thickness distributions are expressed in parametric forms, it is easy to ensure that the designed geometry is continuous and smooth. The effects of lift and thickness distributions on cavitation bucket are numerically investigated. A shift of lift loading towards the aft part of section tends to decrease the margin of back cavitation, while the width of cavitation bucket can be kept almost unchanged. To have a wider cavitation bucket, one can increase the leading edge radius, move properly the location of maximum thickness towards the leading edge, or decrease the curvature at the location of maximum thickness.