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On the evolution of the wake structure produced by a low-aspect-ratio pitching panel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2005

JAMES H. J. BUCHHOLZ  and
ALEXANDER J. SMITS
JAMES H. J. BUCHHOLZ
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
ALEXANDER J. SMITS
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
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Abstract

Flow visualization is used to interrogate the wake structure produced by a rigid flat panel of aspect ratio (span/chord) 0.54 pitching in a free stream at a Strouhal number of 0.23. At such a low aspect ratio, the streamwise vorticity generated by the plate tends to dominate the formation of the wake. Nevertheless, the wake has the appearance of a three-dimensional Kármán vortex street, as observed in a wide range of other experiments, and consists of horseshoe vortices of alternating sign shed twice per flapping cycle. The legs of each horseshoe interact with the two subsequent horseshoes in an opposite-sign, then like-sign interaction in which they become entrained. A detailed vortex skeleton model is proposed for the wake formation.

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 546 , 10 January 2006 , pp. 433 - 443
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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