Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Shock-Induced Flow Separation on Dynamic Stall in Time-Varying Freestream Conditions

Dynamic stall on an oscillatory pitching NACA 0012 airfoil was simulated via CFD under time-varying freestream conditions, which are representative of fast forward flight for a helicopter and which lead to transonic effects at the minimum of the pitch angle. The selected flow conditions were representative of a helicopter blade section at around 80% of the blade radius at the extreme of the forward flight speed, i.e. at around Mach 0.3. A sinusoidal pitch angle variation of 15° ± 10° and an out-of-phase sinusoidal freestream variation of Mach 0.48 ± 0.3 were applied at a mean reduced frequency of 0.029. The mean Reynolds number was approximately 3.3x10⁶. First, the simulation results for steady freestream dynamic stall were carefully validated with experiment. Then, the steady and unsteady freestream dynamic stall simulations were compared. Key findings include the lift coefficient hysteresis loop changing direction for the variable freestream conditions, as well as the peak values of lift, drag and negative pitching moment coefficients increasing by factors of approximately 2∼4. Results suggest that the mechanism of dynamic stall changes dramatically due to the occurrence of transonic flow at minimum angle of attack and confirms that inclusion of time-varying freestream in dynamic stall simulations is important for the extremes of the forward flight speed.