Thoretical, computational and experimental studies of a flat plate undergoing high-amplitude pitching motion

A pitch-up, hold, pitch-down motion for a flat plate is studied using theoretical, computational (immersed boundary method), and experimental (water-tunnel) methods. This motion is one of several canonical pitch motions introduced by the AIAA Fluid Dynamics Technical Committee's Low Reynolds Number Discussion Group. An inviscid theoretical method that is applicable to non-periodic motions and that accounts for large amplitudes and nonplanar wakes is employed. Results from theory are compared against those from computation and experiment which are also compared with each other. The variation of circulatory and apparent-mass loads as a function of pivot location for this motion is examined. The flow phenomena leading up to leading edge vortex shedding and the limit of validity of the inviscid theory in the face of vortex dominated flows is investigated. Also, the effect on pitch amplitude on leading edge vortex shedding is examined and two distinctly different vortex dominated flows are studied using dye flow visualizations from experiment and vorticity plots from computation