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Vortex formation on surging aerofoils with application to reverse flow modelling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2018

Philip B. Kirk  and
Anya R. Jones Open the ORCID record for Anya R. Jones [Opens in a new window]
Philip B. Kirk
Affiliation:
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Anya R. Jones*
Affiliation:
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: arjones@umd.edu
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Abstract

The leading-edge vortex (LEV) is a powerful unsteady flow structure that can result in significant unsteady loads on lifting blades and wings. Using force, surface pressure and flow field measurements, this work represents an experimental campaign to characterize LEV behaviour in sinusoidally surging flows with widely varying amplitudes and frequencies. Additional tests were conducted in reverse flow surge, with kinematics similar to the tangential velocity profile seen by a blade element in recent high-advance-ratio rotor experiments. General results demonstrate the variability of LEV convection properties with reduced frequency, which greatly affected the average lift-to-drag ratio in a cycle. Analysis of surface pressure measurements suggests that LEV convection speed is a function only of the local instantaneous flow velocity. In the rotor-comparison tests, LEVs formed in reverse flow surge were found to convect more quickly than the corresponding reverse flow LEVs that form on a high-advance-ratio rotor, demonstrating that rotary motion has a stabilizing effect on LEVs. The reverse flow surging LEVs were also found to be of comparable strength to those observed on the high-advance-ratio rotor, leading to the conclusion that a surging-wing simplification might provide a suitable basis for low-order models of much more complex three-dimensional flows.

JFM classification

Aerodynamics: Aerodynamics Wakes/Jets: Separated flows Vortex Flows: Vortex Flows
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 859 , 25 January 2019 , pp. 59 - 88
Copyright
© 2018 Cambridge University Press 

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