Alleviation of Airfoil Dynamic Stall Moments via Trailing-Edge Flap Flow Control

Abstract

Trailing-edge-flap flow control for the mitigation of large negative pitching moments and negative aerodynamic damping caused by helicopter rotor blade dynamic stall was studied by means of computational fluid dynamics. A discrete vortex method was used for the simulations. The model geometry was a NACA 0012 airfoil oscillating in an α(t) = 15 deg + 10 deg sin(ωt) motion at the reduced frequency of k = 0.173. The freestream flow conditions were of M = 0.117 and Re = 1.463296 x 10 6 . The flap actuation was a brief pulse signal of a sinusoidal shape