An unsteady airfoil theory applied to pitching motions validated against experiment and computation

An inviscid theoretical method that is applicable to non-periodic motions and that accounts for large amplitudes and non-planar wakes (large-angle unsteady thin airfoil theory) is developed. A pitch-up, hold, pitch-down motion for a flat plate at Reynolds number 10,000 is studied using this theoreti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theoretical and computational fluid dynamics 2013-11, Vol.27 (6), p.843-864
Main Authors: Ramesh, Kiran, Gopalarathnam, Ashok, Edwards, Jack R., Ol, Michael V., Granlund, Kenneth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerodynamics
Aerofoils
Aerospace engineering
Amplitudes
Classical and Continuum Physics
Computation
Computational fluid dynamics
Computational Science and Engineering
Engineering
Engineering Fluid Dynamics
Engineering research
Fluid dynamics
Fluid flow
Mechanical properties
Motion
Original Article
Unsteady
Vortex shedding
Vortices
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Summary:An inviscid theoretical method that is applicable to non-periodic motions and that accounts for large amplitudes and non-planar wakes (large-angle unsteady thin airfoil theory) is developed. A pitch-up, hold, pitch-down motion for a flat plate at Reynolds number 10,000 is studied using this theoretical method and also using computational (immersed boundary method) and experimental (water tunnel) methods. Results from theory are compared against those from computation and experiment which are also compared with each other. The variation of circulatory and apparent-mass loads as a function of pivot location for this motion is examined. The flow phenomena leading up to leading-edge vortex shedding and the limit of validity of the inviscid theory in the face of vortex-dominated flows are investigated. Also, the effect of pitch amplitude on leading-edge vortex shedding is examined, and two distinctly different vortex-dominated flows are studied using dye flow visualizations from experiment and vorticity plots from computation.
ISSN:0935-4964
1432-2250
DOI:10.1007/s00162-012-0292-8