Incompressible flow past a flat plate aerofoil with leading edge separation bubble

1 January 1992

journal article
research article
Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in The Aeronautical Journal

Vol. 96 (952) , 57-64
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0001924000024532

Abstract

Summary: A simple flow model has been developed to predict the size of the separation bubble which forms at the sharp leading edge of a flat plate aerofoil at incidence a which are less than about 8°, and the corresponding lift and drag coefficients. This flow model is based on irrotational flow and source singularities which are determined indirectly from experiment. The bubble length is shown to be proportional to α²with a slope which depends on the rate of growth of the separated shear layer. A thin double-wedge aerofoil has been tested in a wind tunnel. It is concluded that these and previous measurements agree fairly well with the theory for chord Reynolds numbers greater than about 0.5 × 10⁶.

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