The Unsteady flow over a pitching wing using a 3-D Panel Method

Abstract

An unsteady 3-D Panel method has been employed to study the aerodynamics of a finite span wing. The wing is unhinged and is pitching about the quarter chord line as it is moving in the forward direction. The panel method is used to extract the loads on the wing and also to capture the wakes generated by the wing as it executes pitching. The advantages of the panel method visa vie other methods are also summarized. The forces on the wing are plotted with respect to time, from which the propulsive efficiency is calculated. The free wake is simulated by a lattice of shed and trailing vortices. The wakes are plotted in tecplot and compared with plots given in literature. The wake shapes generated by the code for the wing in time dependent motion agrees well with the results obtained in literature.