Unsteady flows around rigid or flexible delta wings with and without oscillating leading-edge flaps are considered. These unsteady flow problems are categorized under two classes of problems. In the first class, the wing motion is prescribed a priori and in the second class, the wing motion is obtained as a part of the solution. The formulation of the first class includes either the unsteady Euler or unsteady Navier-Stokes equations for the fluid dynamics and the unsteady linearized Navier-displacement (ND) equations for the grid deformation.
The problem of unsteady transonic flow past a bicircular-arc airfoil undergoing prescribed thickening-thinning oscillation is studied using the CFL2D code. This code is used to solve the Navier-Stokes equations using an implicit, flux-difference splitting, finite-volume scheme.
For the unsteady supersonic flows around flexible delta wings with prescribed oscillating deformation and rigid delta wings with leading-edge-flap oscillations, the conservative, unsteady Euler and thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations in a moving frame-of-reference, along with the linearized ND equations, have been used. Two main problems are solved to demonstrate the validity of the developed schemes. The first problem is that of a flexible delta wing undergoing a prescribed bending-mode oscillation. In the second problem, a rigid-delta wing with symmetric and anti-symmetric flap oscillations is considered. These applications fall under the first class of problems.
For the unsteady flow applications, where the wing motion is not prescribed a priori (second class of problems), either the unsteady Euler or thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations and the rigid-body dynamics equations, in a moving frame of reference, are solved sequentially to obtain the flow behavior and the wing motion. The main application for this class of unsteady flow phenomena, is the wing-rock problem. Using the locally-conical flow assumption, three problems are solved. The first is that of a delta wing undergoing a damped rolling oscillation. The second is that of a delta wing undergoing a limit-cycle, wing-rock motion. In the third problem, suppression of the wing-rock motion is demonstrated using a tuned anti-symmetric oscillation of the leading-edge flap
