Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Oscillation Parameters Effects on Stability Derivatives of a NACA0012 Airfoil

In this article, a comprehensive procedure is proposed to calculate the stability derivatives of a NACA0012 airfoil by means of wind tunnel test and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). To accomplish maneuverability study and dynamic analysis of the flight vehicle, these derivatives were obtained finding the body aerodynamic responses to some specified time variant motions. Here, on the basis of linearized equations of motion, in which the aerodynamic coefficients appear explicitly, two distinct oscillating maneuvers were considered: plunging and fish-like oscillating motion. To obtain the aerodynamic responses of the moving airfoil, a CFD method based on Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations was used with dynamic mesh technique to simulate the specified maneuvers. The computational results were then validated comparing the wind tunnel tests data of the plunging maneuver. Afterwards, the aerodynamic coefficients were calculated using the resulting loads. Finally, the effects of oscillating motion parameters variations on these coefficients are investigated, which shows that dimensionless coefficients are dependent on the oscillations amplitude and frequency. However, they are independent of the Strouhal number in the studied range.