| Abstract: | As is well known, the lift of a wing passing over the ground becomes larger than that of a wing in a finite air field because of the ground effect. Owing to its special aerodynamic characteristics and applications, the problem of the ground effect has become increasingly common. In this paper some investigations were conducted to calculate the unsteady aerodynamic forces for long and short ground plates by means of boundary element techniques. In order to calculate the pressure variation on a long ground plate, the steady boundary element method was used. However, when using a short ground plate, the boundary element method was modified to treat the unsteady aerodynamic phenomena. Experimental studies were also made for both ground plates to confirm the validity of the numerical results. At low angles of attack the qualitative behaviour of the unsteady aerodynamic pressure on both ground plates was well predicted by the boundary element methods and qualitative agreement is found between the calculated and measured results. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
