Calculation of Airfoil Flutter by an Euler Method with Approximate Boundary Conditions

Abstract

A numerical method is demonstrated for solving the steady and unsteady Euler equations on stationary Cartersian grids for the purpose of time-domain simulation of aeroelastic problems. Wall boundary conditions are implemented on nonmoving mean chord positions by assuming the airfoil being thin and undergoing small deformation, whereas the full nonlinear Euler equations are used in the flowfield for accurate resolution of shock waves and vorticity. The method does not require the generation of moving body-fitted grids and thus can be easily deployed in any fluid-structure interaction problem involving relatively small deformation of a thin body. The first-order wall boundary conditions are used in solving the full Euler equations, and the results are compared with the Euler solutions using the exact boundary conditions and known experimental data. It is shown that the first-order boundary conditions are adequate to represent airfoils of typical thicknesses with small deformation for both steady and unsteady calculations. Flutter boundaries are accurately predicted by this method for the Isogai wing model test case.