Theoretical and numerical studies of oscillating airfoils

Unsteady flowfields around airfoils oscillating in pitch and associated dynamic stall phenomena are investigated. A viscous flow analysis and a simplified vortical flow analysis, both based on an integro-differential formulation of the Navier Stokes equations are developed and calibrated. The formulation of the viscous flow analysis confines computations only to the viscous flow zone and leads to an efficient zonal solution procedure. In the simplified vortical flow analysis, computational demands are greatly reduced by partial analytic evaluations. Simulated flowfields and computed aerodynamic loads are in good agreement with available experimental data.