Over the last decade, many flight tests of the conventional/canard/flying-wing layout UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle) have proven that the trailing-edge circulation control (CC) is an effective method to generate a significant rolling moment for the rolling control. However, the Coanda jet’s three-dimensional effects, especially the Coanda jet direction, on the design of UCAVs (unmanned combat air vehicle) have not been revealed and discussed clearly yet. In order to solve this problem, the effects of the Coanda jet direction on the swept wing’s aerodynamics and flow physics are investigated in detail in this paper. An in-house CFD(computational fluid dynamics) solver HyperFLOW with the Spalart–Allmaras for Rotation and Curvature turbulence model and the velocity inlet boundary has been validated by 2-D and 3-D CC cases and is used in this work. The research reveals that compared with the Coanda jet in the freestream direction (FJ jet), the Coanda jet perpendicular to the trailing edge (PJ jet) has a more significant impact on the aerodynamic loads and flow structures for swept wings, including increasing lift, drag, and nose-down moment, enhancing the wingtip vortex and weakening the thickness vortex. In contrast, the FJ jet performs better in improving the lift-to-drag ratio of swept wings. On a typical UCAV, the generalizability of the conclusion about the Coanda jet direction effects on the aerodynamic characteristics is verified. The current research gets an insight into the three-dimensional effects of the trailing-edge CC and provides solid support for implementing the CC technology into practical aircraft concepts.
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