Intake grille design for an embedded ventilation-and-cooling system in an aircraft

An inlet grille typically needs to be installed at the inlet of the air intake of the ventilation-and-cooling system embedded in airborne electronic equipment to improve pneumatic stealth performance. Here, a typical flying wing model is used as a case study, and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is performed. The flow resistance characteristics of the air intake of the opening of the ventilation-and-cooling system on a flat fuselage surface with and without an inlet grille are analyzed at different flow rates and Mach 0.25. The effects of the grille opening shape, diversion angle, thickness, aperture size, and hole shape on the flow resistance characteristics are investigated in detail. The grille is found to effectively guide airflow entry: although the flow resistance at the inlet is increased, the flow resistance at the inlet and outlet of the air intake is significantly reduced. The optimal developments of the outflow and flow resistance characteristics are obtained for a quadrilateral opening. The smaller the diversion angle is, the smoother the airflow entry, and the higher the quality of the internal airflow. The rectification, viscous resistance, and weight exhibit opposing trends with increasing thickness and must be comprehensively considered in designing an optimal scheme. A large-aperture grille ensures good flow patency at low flow rates, whereas a small-aperture grille can reduce flow perturbations and separation at high flow rates by smoothly guiding air into the intake. A grille with round holes has a better spanwise and chordwise balancing effect on the airflow and better flow resistance characteristics than a grille with diamond-shaped holes.