Unsteady flow phenomena associated with leading-edge vortices

This paper presents selected results from extensive experimental investigations on turbulent flow fields and unsteady surface pressures caused by leading-edge vortices, in particular, for vortex breakdown flow. Such turbulent flows may cause severe dynamic aeroelastic problems like wing and/or fin buffeting on fighter-type aircraft. The wind tunnel models used include a generic delta wing as well as a detailed aircraft configuration of canard-delta wing type. The turbulent flow structures are analyzed by root-mean-square and spectral distributions of velocity and pressure fluctuations. Downstream of bursting local maxima of velocity fluctuations occur in a limited radial range around the vortex center. The corresponding spectra exhibit significant peaks indicating that turbulent kinetic energy is channeled into a narrow band. These quasi-periodic velocity oscillations arise from a helical mode instability of the breakdown flow. Due to vortex bursting there is a characteristic increase in surface pressure fluctuations with increasing angle of attack, especially when the burst location moves closer to the apex. The pressure fluctuations also show dominant frequencies corresponding to those of the velocity fluctuations. Using the measured flow field data, scaling parameters are derived for design purposes. It is shown that a frequency parameter based on the local semi-span and the sinus of angle of attack can be used to estimate the frequencies of dynamic loads evoked by vortex bursting.