Lift Response of a Stalled Wing to Pulsatile Disturbances

Abstract

The transient lift response of a low-Reynolds-number wing subjected to small amplitude pulsatile disturbances is investigated. The wing has a small aspect ratio and a semicircular planform, and it is fully stalled at a 20 deg angle of attack. Microvalve actuators distributed along the leading edge of the wing produce the transient disturbance. It is shown that the lift response to a single pulse increases with increasing actuator supply pressure and that the lift response curves are similar to each other when scaled by the total impulse. Furthermore, for fixed actuator supply pressure, the amplitude and total impulse of the transient lift response curve increases with increasing external flow speed. In this case, the lift response curves are similar when scaled by the dynamic pressure. The lift response to a single pulse can be treated as a filter kernel, and it can be used to predict the lift time history for the arbitrary actuator input signals. The kernel is similar in shape to transient measurements obtained by other investigators on two-dimensional wings and flaps. Comparisons between the model predictions and the experiments using multiple pulse inputs and square-wave modulated input signals at low frequencies are presented.