Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2014
The subject of the paper is the numerical simulation of the interaction of two-dimensional incompressible viscous flow and a vibrating airfoil with large amplitudes. The airfoil with three degrees of freedom performs rotation around an elastic axis, oscillations in the vertical direction and rotation of a flap. The numerical simulation consists of the finite element solution of the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations combined with Spalart-Allmaras or κ–ω turbulence models, coupled with a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations describing the airfoil motion with consideration of large amplitudes. The time-dependent computational domain and approximation on a moving grid are treated by the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation of the flow equations. Due to large values of the involved Reynolds numbers an application of a suitable stabilization of the finite element discretization is employed. The developed method is used for the computation of flow-induced oscillations of the airfoil near the flutter instability, when the displacements of the airfoil are large, up to ±40 degrees in rotation. The paper contains the comparison of the numerical results obtained by both turbulence models.