Basic Studies of the Unsteady Flow Past High Angle of Attack Airfoils

Abstract

An experimental and numerical simulations have been carried out to study the unsteady flow past an impulsively started NACA 0012 airfoil at different angles of attack (O<alpha<45 deg.). A novel experimental technique, commonly referred to as Particle Image Displacement Velocimetry (PIDV), is successfully implemented to measure the instantaneous velocity fields. The velocity field is measured with sufficient accuracy so that the distribution of vorticity can be calculated. The unsteady separated flow fields generated by these airfoils contain large scale vortical structures such as; a primary vortex generated at the leading edge of the airfoil with secondary vortices upstream of it; a trailing vortex, and a vortex sheet type structure. The origins and time evolution of these structures are clearly depicted by the instantaneous velocity and vorticity fields. A random-walk vortex simulations of the full Navier-Stokes equations were performed as comparison. Keywords: Unsteady flows; High angle of attack airfoils; Particle image velocimetry; Vortex calculations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 15, 1989
Accession Number
ADA210252

Entities

People

  • Anjaneyulu Krothapalli
  • Leon Van Dommelen
  • Luiz Lourenco

Organizations

  • Florida State University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Air Platforms
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Asymptotic Series
  • Boundary Layer
  • Boundary Layer Flow
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computational Science
  • Flow Visualization
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Fluid Flow
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Geometry
  • Hydrodynamics
  • Lasers
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Physics Laboratories
  • Three Dimensional
  • Turbulent Mixing
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.