Experimental and Numerical Determination of Aerodynamic Characteristics of an Ogive with Canards

This work presents an integrated experimental and numerical determination of the aerodynamic (lift) characteristics of an ogive forebody equipped with all moving canards. Experimental testing was conducted in the subsonic custom-made wind tunnel of the Vlatacom Institute at a nominal free stream velocity of 32 m/s (and Mach number M = 0.09). Aerodynamic loads on the canards were measured using a custom one-component force balance, while free stream flow properties were obtained via a calibrated Pitot–Prandtl probe on the full-scale geometry model. On the numerical side, RANS simulations were performed in ANSYS Fluent using the k-ω SST turbulence model. Two geometric representations were considered: (a) a high-fidelity configuration explicitly resolving the physical gap between the canard and ogive, and (b) a simplified configuration with the gap removed. Boundary conditions, Reynolds number, and operating parameters were matched to the wind tunnel conditions to enable a strict one-to-one comparison. Particular emphasis was placed on examining the effect of geometric simplification on the predicted lift characteristics. The gap-resolved configuration reproduces the experimentally measured lift curve within approximately 10% across the investigated angle-of-attack range, satisfying conventional aerodynamic validation criteria. The results confirm both the robustness of the applied RANS approach for highly three-dimensional separated flows often found in engineering applications, as well as the reliability of the experimental measurement system.