Unsteady aerodynamics of a pitching NACA 0012 airfoil at low Reynolds number

Abstract

The present paper aims to investigate numerically small amplitude oscillation of NACA 0012 airfoil at Re = 1000. The airfoil is sinusoidally pitching around the quarter chord point with 1° pitch amplitude about a mean angle of attack. The computations are performed for mean angles of attack ranging from 0° to 60° and for pitching frequencies of 1 Hz and 4 Hz. The effect of the mean angle of attack and pitching frequency on the instantaneous forces as well as the vortex structure is investigated in comparison with the non-oscillatory conditions. It was shown that airfoil oscillations at the investigated conditions change the amplitude of oscillation of the aerodynamic loads. The instantaneous drag coefficient is always positive for pitching airfoil at 1 Hz. In the meantime, there are time intervals where instantaneous drag coefficient becomes negative for pitching motion at 4 Hz for mean angles of attack from 3° to 36°.