Quantitative analysis of fluid transport in dynamic stall of a pitching airfoil using variational Lagrangian coherent structures and lobe dynamics

Abstract

The evolution of flow structures during dynamic stall of a two-dimensional pitching National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 0012 airfoil is studied using the variational Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs), and the mass transport and vorticity transport are precisely analyzed using LCSs and lobe dynamics for further understanding the nature of flow phenomena in dynamic stall. First, the variational LCS algorithm is improved to be efficiently used in the accurate extraction of flow structures. Then, both the hyperbolic LCSs and elliptic LCSs are computed numerically in the whole process of dynamic stall to analyze the evolution of flow structures in detail. Further, a high-accuracy LCS-advection method is used in the advection of LCSs to quantitatively analyze the mass transport and vorticity transport in the evolution of LCSs utilizing lobe dynamics based on nonlinear dynamics. Finally, the evolution and motion of primary leading edge vortex (LEV) and trailing edge vortex (TEV) identified by elliptic LCSs are analyzed in depth. The results obtained can provide a deeper insight into the nature of flow phenomena in dynamic stall from the viewpoint of nonlinear dynamics. Specifically, the nature of evolution of primary LEV and the TEV and the reasons for the changes of lift coefficients are clarified from the viewpoint of fluid transport. To explain it briefly, the variational LCSs and lobe dynamics are powerful tools to quantitatively analyze the evolution of flow structures and fluid transport.