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An impulse-based approach to estimating forces in unsteady flow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2017

W. R. Graham Open the ORCID record for W. R. Graham [Opens in a new window] ,
C. W. Pitt Ford  and
H. Babinsky
W. R. Graham*
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
C. W. Pitt Ford
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
H. Babinsky
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

The ready availability of full-field velocity measurements in present-day experiments has kindled interest in using such data for force estimation, especially in situations where direct measurements are difficult. Among the methods proposed, a formulation based on impulse is attractive, for both practical and physical reasons. However, evaluation of the impulse requires a complete description of the vorticity field, and this is particularly hard to achieve in the important region close to a body surface. This paper presents a solution to the problem. The incomplete experimental-vorticity field is augmented by a vortex sheet on the body, with strength determined by the no-slip boundary condition. The impulse is then found from the sum of vortex-sheet and experimental contributions. Components of physical interest can straightforwardly be recognised; for example, the classical ‘added mass’ associated with fluid inertia is represented by an explicit term in the formulation for the vortex sheet. The method is implemented in the context of two-dimensional flat-plate flow, and tested on velocity-field data from a translating wing experiment. The results show that the vortex-sheet contribution is significant for the test data set. Furthermore, when it is included, good agreement with force-balance measurements is found. It is thus recommended that any impulse-based force calculation should correct for (likely) data incompleteness in this way.

JFM classification

Biological Fluid Dynamics: Biological Fluid Dynamics Vortex Flows: Vortex dynamics Vortex Flows: Vortex Flows
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 815 , 25 March 2017 , pp. 60 - 76
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Copyright
© 2017 Cambridge University Press 

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