The accurate computation of aerodynamic forces on the airfoil/wing is highly important at the design stage of wind turbines, propellers, helicopters, aircrafts and compressors. Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) approach based on CFD has tremendously progressed over last few decades in terms of effectiveness, robustness, and capabilities in analysing the flow field around the complex aerodynamics configuration [1,2]. However, the complexity of analysing the flow field around the aerodynamic body is significantly affected by the Reynolds number, angle of incidence and shape of the aerodynamic body due to the occurrence of different flow mechanisms such as laminar separation bubbles, transition from laminar to turbulent, flow separation and vortex shedding [[3], [4], [5], [6]]. In this regard, the accurate and detailed flow analysis under this circumstance is still a challenging issue in terms of geometric complexity, Reynolds number, and turbulences present within the flow.

A turbulence model study was performed to analyze the flow around the Tubercle Leading Edge (TLE) wing. Five turbulence models were selected to evaluate aerodynamic force coefficients and flow mechanism by comparing with existing literature results. To assess the accuracy of different turbulence models for analyzing the flow around the LE tubercle wing. Initially, the Computer Aided design (CAD) model of the wing is designed in Pro-Engineer software; once the model is imported the fluid domain is created around the wing model. Meshing is performed in ANSYS Meshing tool, and CFD modeling is carried out in FLUENT™, where the different turbulence models were employed for the accurate prediction of the aerodynamic performance of the TLE wing. The study is carried out within the range of angle of attacks from 0 to 20° with the interval of 4°.

The present study investigates the accuracy of the RANS turbulence modeling approach to predict aerodynamic force coefficients and flow mechanism against published experimental results.