MTV measurements of the vortical field in the wake of an airfoil oscillating at high reduced frequency

We present an experimental investigation of the flow structure and vorticity field in the wake of a NACA-0012 airfoil pitching sinusoidally at small amplitude and high reduced frequencies. Molecular tagging velocimetry is used to quantify the characteristics of the vortex array (circulation, peak vorticity, core size, spatial arrangement) and its downstream evolution over the first chord length as a function of reduced frequency. The measured mean and fluctuating velocity fields are used to estimate the mean force on the airfoil and explore the connection between flow structure and thrust generation. Results show that strong concentrated vortices form very rapidly within the first wavelength of oscillation and exhibit interesting dynamics that depend on oscillation frequency. With increasing reduced frequency the transverse alignment of the vortex array changes from an orientation corresponding to velocity deficit (wake profile) to one with velocity excess (reverse Kármán street with jet profile). It is found, however, that the switch in the vortex array orientation does not coincide with the condition for crossover from drag to thrust. The mean force is estimated from a more complete control volume analysis, which takes into account the streamwise velocity fluctuations and the pressure term. Results clearly show that neglecting these terms can lead to a large overestimation of the mean force in strongly fluctuating velocity fields that are characteristic of airfoils executing highly unsteady motions. Our measurements show a decrease in the peak vorticity, as the vortices convect downstream, by an amount that is more than can be attributed to viscous diffusion. It is found that the presence of small levels of axial velocity gradients within the vortex cores, levels that can be difficult to measure experimentally, can lead to a measurable decrease in the peak vorticity even at the centre of the flow facility in a flow that is expected to be primarily two-dimensional.