Development of Airfoils Based on Their Aerodynamic Characteristics Using Artificial Neural Networks

作     者：Bruno da Cunha Diniz Raimundo Carlos Silverio Freire Junior Sandi Itamar Schafer de Souza 

作者机构：Departament of Mechanical Engineering Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte Natal 59078-970 Brazil 

出 版 物：《Journal of Mechanics Engineering and Automation》 (机械工程与自动化（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2014年第4卷第5期

页      面：372-381页

学科分类：0832[工学-食品科学与工程（可授工学、农学学位）] 08[工学] 0835[工学-软件工程] 083202[工学-粮食、油脂及植物蛋白工程] 081202[工学-计算机软件与理论] 0812[工学-计算机科学与技术（可授工学、理学学位）] 

主　　题：Airfoils aerodynamic characteristics artificial neural networks network architecture. 

摘      要：One of the main concerns in Engineering nowadays is the development of aircrafts of low consumption and high performance. For this purpose, airfoils are studied and designed to have an elevated lift coefficient and a low drag coefficient, thus generating a highly efficient airfoil. The higher the efficiency value is, the lower the aircraft fuel consumption will be; thus improving its performance. In this sense, this work aims to develop a tool for airfoil creation from some desired characteristics, such as the lift and drag coefficients and maximum efficiency rate, using an algorithm based on an ANN （artificial neural network）. In order to do so, a database of aerodynamic characteristics with a total of 300 airfoils was initially collected from the XFoil software. Then, through a routine implemented in the MATLAB software, network architectures of one, two, three and four modules were trained, using the back propagation algorithm and momentum. The cross-validation technique was applied to analyze the results, evaluating which network possesses the lowest value in RMS （root-mean-square） error. In this case, the best result obtained was from the two-module architecture with two hidden neuron layers. The airfoils developed by this network, in the regions with the lowest RMS, were compared to the same airfoils imported to XFoil. The presented work offers as a contribution, in relation to other works involving ANN applied to fluid mechanics, the development of airfoils from their aerodynamic characteristics.