Effect of Ncr on VLM and LLT in XFLR5

An S5010 airfoil was solved twice by setting Ncr = 9 and Ncr = 4. The effect of
Ncr on CL and CD in 3D is observed.
Wing: AR = 10, Re = 70,000

Alpha-CL
1.2

0.8

0.6
CL

LLT N4
LLT N9
0.4 VLM N4
VLM N9
0.2

0
0 5 10 15 20
Alpha

CL Effect
• Ncr has no effect on VLM, VLM calculates inviscid CL but LLT does take 2D
viscous CL into account.
• Note that VLM doesn’t calculate stall but it stops when it reaches a local CL
in the solution that doesn’t have a corresponding one in 2D to interpolate CD
from.
CD-CL
1.2

0.8

0.6
CL

LLT N4
LLT N9
0.4 VLM N4
VLM N9
0.2

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
CD

CD Effect
• Both VLM and LLT are affected by Ncr and by 2D viscous results in general.
• CD is the same in both methods vs CL, for the same Ncr but this doesn’t mean
that it is the same vs Alpha since Alpha-CL curves are different
Alpha vs CL3/2/CD

20
18 LLT N4

16 LLT N9
VLM N4
14
VLM N9
12
CL3/2/CD

10
8
6
4
2
0
0 5 10 15 20
Alpha

• Although both VLM curves have same CL but they have different CD since Ncr
affects CD, so the power coefficient curves are different.
Alpha-Cm
0.1

0.05

0
0 5 10 15 20
-0.05
LLT N4
Cm

-0.1 LLT N9
VLM N4
-0.15
VLM N9
-0.2

-0.25

-0.3
Alpha

• Cm in VLM is inviscid and is not affected by Ncr as in CL

Conclusion
VLM:
• CL is inviscid, CD is viscous from 2D solution
• Stall is not estimated. The solution just stops when local CL reaches max in
any span position.
LLT:
• CL and CD are both viscous.
• Stall is approximated in some way using 2D solution.
So, in a Low Re case with separation bubble present, using the VLM is equivalent of
ignoring separation bubble effect on CL and treating the problem as a high Re. Thus,
I believe that the error of LLT not taking sweep effect into account is much smaller
than treating the CL as inviscid in VLM