| Abstract: | In this paper the problem of impulsively started aerofoil or suden change of incidence of an aerofoil in incompressible potential flow is investigated. The essence of solution lies in the representation of a timely and spatially varying wake in a largely irrotational potential flow field. This is achieved by representing the wake through velocity potential difference, which seems to be the only way of imposing a velocity difference condition in the finite element context with velocity potentials as the basic unknowns. Superposition is employed to meet various boundary conditions, which is justified by the linearity of the problem. The finite element solutions are compared with those from singularity method. |
