Dynamic Stall Prediction of a Pitching Airfoil using an Adjusted Two-Equation URANS Turbulence Model

The necessity in the analysis of dynamic stall becomes increasingly important due to its impact on many streamlined structures such as helicopter and wind turbine rotor blades. The present paper provides Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) predictions of a pitching NACA 0012 airfoil at reduced frequency of 0.1 and at small Reynolds number value of 1.35e5. The simulations were carried out by adjusting the k − ε URANS turbulence model in order to damp the turbulence production in the near wall region. The damping factor was introduced as a function of wall distance in the buffer zone region. Parametric studies on the involving variables were conducted and the effect on the prediction capability was shown. The results were compared with available experimental data and CFD simulations using some selected two-equation turbulence models. An improvement of the lift coefficient prediction was shown even though the results still roughly mimic the experimental data. The flow development under the dynamic stall onset was investigated with regards to the effect of the leading and trailing edge vortices. Furthermore, the characteristics of the flow at several chords length downstream the airfoil were evaluated.