Unsteady Aeroelastic Simulations for Airfoils

Abstract

Unsteady flowfields around airfoils pitching or/and plunging are investigated. The objective of this study is to test the ability of our computational code to predict unsteady fluid/structure interaction in the context of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. A physically consistent method is used for the reconstruction of velocity fluxes which arise from discrete equations for the mass and momentum balance. To validate the code, a dynamic-stall case is presented. Different cases in fluid/structure interaction are studied. Firstly, we examine the case where the airfoil have only a single plunging degree of freedom. Then, the airfoil can just pitch about the mid-chord. Endly, the airfoil motion consits in plunging and pitching.