| Summary: | Membrane airfoil is said to have the flexibility to change its surface geometry to adapt to the airflow. This means that it has the potential to balance the pressure gradient, resulting with a delayed stall and also the capability to expand its camber to increase the overall lift. The paper aims to study the aerodynamic performance of a ribbed-structure airfoil (NACA 4412) wrapped in a thin sheet of latex rubber membrane and compare it with the original
rigid airfoil. The results from this experiment showed that the lift-to-drag ratio of the membrane airfoil improved when compared to its rigid counterpart with investigations
carried out at low Reynolds number from around Re = 30,000
∼100,000. Due to the characteristics of the membrane being frail, high flow velocity will not be suitable. Aerodynamic forces are measured using external force balance at subsonic wind tunnel. Also, this study will attempt to measure the membrane deflections of the airfoil using the
concept of elastic modulus.
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