Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

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Computers & Fluids

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / c o m p fl u i d

Numerical analysis of flow-induced nonlinear vibrations of an airfoil

with three degrees of freedom
Miloslav Feistauer a,⇑, Jaromír Horáček b, Martin Růžička a, Petr Sváček c
a
Charles University Prague, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Sokolovská 83, 186 75 Praha 8, Czech Republic
b
Institute of Thermomechanics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Dolejškova 5, 182 00 Praha 8, Czech Republic
c
Czech Technical University Prague, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Karlovo nám. 13, 121 35 Praha 2, Czech Republic

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The subject of the paper is the numerical simulation of the interaction of two-dimensional incompress-
Received 26 April 2010 ible viscous flow and a vibrating airfoil with large amplitudes. A solid airfoil with three degrees of free-
Received in revised form 5 May 2011 dom performs rotation around an elastic axis, oscillations in the vertical direction and rotation of a flap.
Accepted 6 May 2011
The numerical simulation consists of the finite element solution of the Navier–Stokes equations coupled
Available online 18 May 2011
with a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations describing the airfoil motion. The time-depen-
dent computational domain and a moving grid are treated by the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) for-
Keywords:
mulation of the Navier–Stokes equations. High Reynolds numbers require the application of a suitable
Aeroelasticity
Navier–Stokes equations
stabilization of the finite element discretization. With the aid of numerical experiments we analyze
Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation the convergence of the method, if the computational mesh is refined and the time step is successively
Finite element method decreased. Also the effect of the loose (weak) and strong coupling of the flow and structure problems
Stabilization for high Reynolds numbers is tested. The applicability of the method is demonstrated by the comparison with NASTRAN computa-
Non-linear oscillations tions and the solution of the coupled fluid–structure problem with increasing far-field velocity up to
Flutter instability and behind the flutter instability. The developed method can be used in theoretical prediction of dynamic
behaviour of aeroelastic systems especially when the system stability has been lost.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction mathematical complexity of the problem, caused by the time-

The interaction of fluids and structures plays an important role
in a number of fields. Important applications can be found in tech-
nology (design of engineering systems, as aircrafts, blade ma-
chines, bridges and other structures in civil or mechanical
engineering) and in biomechanics (e.g. elastic artery modelling
for stent design, simulation of the flow in blood vessels and study-
ing the vocal folds vibrations and vocal sound production). The
interaction between flowing fluids and vibrating structures is the
main subject of aeroelasticity, which studies the influence of aero-
dynamic and elastic forces on an elastic structure. The flow-in-
duced vibrations may affect negatively the operation and
stability of the systems. Therefore, one of the main goals of aero-
elasticity is the prediction and cure of the aeroelastic instability.
This discipline achieved many results, particularly from engineer-
ing point of view (see, e.g. the monographs [3,13,28]).
From the point of view of pure mathematical theory of fluid–
structure interaction, there are not too many works, due to a high
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: feist@karlin.mff.cuni.cz (M. Feistauer), jaromirh@it.cas.cz
(J. Horáček), mart.in.ruza@seznam.cz (M. Růžička), svacek@marian.fsik.cvut.cz
(P. Sváček).
dependence of the domain occupied by the fluid and coupling of
systems describing flow and elastic structures. We can mention,
e.g. the work Neustupa [29] devoted to the solvability of the Na-
vier–Stokes system in time-dependent domains and the works
Granmond [17], Guidorzi et al. [18] and Hoffmann and Starovoitov
[19] dealing with the interaction of viscous incompressible flow
and elastic plates or solid bodies.
The subject of our attention is the numerical analysis of the
interaction of viscous flow with a vibrating airfoil. In many aero-
space engineering problems, it is important to simulate flow in-
duced airfoil vibrations in order to predict the bounds of
stability, to determine the rise of instabilities leading to flutter
and to analyze postcritical regimes.
The fluid–structure interaction can lead to unacceptable vibra-
tion level due to the self-induced oscillations, and to fatigue
failures [3]. The linearized aeroelastic equations allow the determi-
nation of the flutter boundary, whereas the nonlinear approach
allows the determination of the character of the flutter boundary.
The dynamic behavior of the structure at the flutter boundary
can be either acceptable, when sustained vibration amplitudes
are moderate, or catastrophic, when the amplitudes are increasing
in time above safety limits (see [4]). The terminology of benign or
catastrophic flutter is synonymous with that of stable and unstable

0045-7930/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compfluid.2011.05.004
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127
limit cycle oscillations (LCO) (see [12]), in Paidoussis [31,32] also
referred as supercritical and subcritical Hopf bifurcation.
The nonlinearities in the aeroelastic model can yield a moderate
vibration level at the flutter boundary or they can contribute to the
catastrophic type of flutter boundary. Conversion of the cata-
strophic type of flutter boundary into a benign requires consider-
ation of the nonlinear aeroelastic equations and the inclusion of
a feedback control as shown in Librescu and Marzocca [22]. Many
papers published on flutter controlling methods are very closely
related to the nonlinear aeroelasticity of airfoils studied here. Sup-
pression of the occurrence of the flutter instability has a great
importance. For example, Librescu et al. [23] considered the sub-
critical aeroelastic response of two degrees of freefom (2-DOF) air-
foil in 2-D incompressible flow to external time-dependent
excitations, and the flutter instability of actively controlled airfoils.
Analytical analysis and numerical simulations of the aeroelastic
response of 3-DOF airfoil–flap system subjected to time-dependent
loads in an incompressible flow were addressed by Shim et al. [35]
focusing on feedback control in order to suppress the flutter insta-
bility. The aerodynamic forces are derived from the Theodorsen
equations. In Na et al. [27] the aeroelastic response and control
of 3-DOF flapped-wing system in an incompressible fluid flow
and exposed to external pressure pulse was studied.
Structural nonlinearities can have significant effects on the
aeroelastic response. Recently, Chung et al. [8] analyzed of LCO
for a 2-DOF airfoil motion containing a hysteresis structural non-
linearity. The mechanism of limit cycle excitation is investigated
for an aeroelastic system with structural nonlinearities by Dessi
and Mastroddi [11]. Flutter boundaries and LCO with influence of
structural nonlinearities like freeplay and hysteresis in stiffness
was studied by Jones et al. [21].
Recently, a history of 2-D unsteady incompressible airfoil the-
ory using potential flow model has been overviewed by Peters [33].
In fluid–structure interaction problems, input parameters can
suffer from randomness. This subject is analyzed, for example, in
Witteveen and Bijl [39], where an adaptive stochastic finite ele-
ment approach for rigid-body fluid–structure interaction is
developed.
In all cited papers, only small amplitudes of vibrations are con-
sidered and no effects of large rotation amplitudes and nonlinear
mass matrix are taken into account.
An important item in the area of fluid–structure interaction is
the state of art of the numerical simulation of coupled fluid–struc-
ture problems. There are several works concerned with a general
framework of strategies applied to this subject. In Badia and Codina
[1], an iterative coupling based on the domain decomposition
framework is described. In [2], partitioned procedures for fluid–
structure interaction coupling based on the Robin-type transmis-
sion conditions are designed. The paper Farhat et al. [14] presents
a methodology for designing formally second-order time accurate
loosely coupled fluid–structure interaction procedures. Various as-
pects of coupling fluid–structure algorithms are treated by Fernan-
dez and Gerbeau [15], particularly with respect to modelling and
simulation of cardiovascular systems.
In our paper we are concerned with a two-dimensional viscous
incompressible flow past a moving airfoil, which is considered as a
solid flexibly supported body with three degrees of freedom, allow-
ing its vertical and torsional oscillations and the rotation of a flap.
The airfoil vibrations are described by a system of second-order
nonlinear ordinary differential equations for the vertical displace-
ment of the airfoil, the rotation angle of the whole airfoil around
its elastic axis and the rotation angle of the flap around its elastic
axis. This system allows the simulation of airfoil vibrations with
large amplitudes and includes also the torsional stiffness modelled
by nonlinear cubic spring terms. The numerical simulation consists
of the stabilized finite element solution of the Navier–Stokes equa-
111
tions written in the ALE form coupled with the system of equations
describing the airfoil motion and solved by the Runge–Kutta meth-
od. We give a detailed description of all ingredients of the coupled
fluid–structure interaction problem. Namely, the time and space
discretization including the finite element stabilization allowing
the solution of flow problem with high Reynolds numbers is trea-
ted, the construction of the ALE mapping is described and the cou-
pling algorithm involving the loose and strong coupling is
formulated.
The developed technique is analyzed and tested on the basis of
numerical experiments. We are concerned with the convergence
analysis and results sensitivity with respect to the the time and
mesh size. Moreover, the accuracy of the method is tested for
loosely coupled and strongly coupled fluid–structure strategies.
The method is also tested on a problem for which the results com-
puted by the MSC.NASTRAN program code are available. The com-
parison of our computations and the NASTRAN results shows good
agreement. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the devel-
oped method is sufficiently accurate and robust and allows to re-
solve both subcritical and postcritical regimes of flow-induced
airfoil vibrations.
2. Formulation of the problem
The two-dimensional non-stationary flow of viscous, incom-
pressible fluid is considered in the time interval [0, T], where
T > 0. The symbol Xt will denote the computational domain occu-
pied by the fluid at time t. The flow is characterized by the velocity
u = u(x, t) and the kinematic pressure p = p(x, t), for x 2 Xt and
t 2 [0, T]. The kinematic pressure is defined as P/q, where P is the
pressure and q = const. > 0 is the density of the fluid. By m we de-
note the kinematic viscosity.
The quantites u and p satisfy the Navier–Stokes equations and
the continuity equation
@u
þ ðu  rÞu  mMu þ rp ¼ 0;
@t ð2:1Þ
r  u ¼ 0 in Xt ; t 2 ð0; TÞ:
By Xt and @ Xt we shall denote the closure and the boundary
of the domain Xt. We shall assume that @ Xt ¼ CD [ CO [ CW t ,
where the sets CD, CO and CW t are mutually disjoint and bound-
ary conditions of different types are prescribed there. The part
CD represents the inlet, where the fluid flows into the domain
Xt, or a fixed, impermeable wall, CO denotes the outlet, where
the fluid leaves Xt and CW t is the moving airfoil boundary at
time t. It consists of two parts – profile Pt and flap Ft:
CW t ¼ P t [ F t . We assume that CD and CO are independent of
time in contrast to CW t .
The motion of the airfoil is described by functions a(t), b(t) and
h(t), representing the rotation angle of the whole airfoil around an
elastic axis EA, the rotation angle of the flap around an elastic axis
EF and the vertical displacement of the whole airfoil, respectively.
The shape of the domain Xt depends on the functions a(t), b(t) and
h(t).
We consider two situations, namely the flap attached to the
main body of the airfoil without any gap and the flap separated
from the main body of the airfoil by a narrow gap with width g.
See Fig. 1.
2.1. ALE formulation of the Navier–Stokes equations
In order to simulate flow in a moving domain Xt, we employ the
arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) method (cf. [30]), based on a
regular one-to-one ALE mapping
At : X0 # Xt ; X 2 X0 # xðX; tÞ ¼ At ðXÞ 2 Xt ; t 2 ½0; T: ð2:2Þ
112 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

EA EA

h EF EF

h
EF EF
EA EA

Fig. 1. Model scheme – airfoil with three degrees of freedom without a gap (left) and with a gap (right).

The reference domain X0 is identical with the domain occupied by sional moment of the force acting on the flap with respect to the
the fluid at the initial time t = 0. The coordinates of points x 2 Xt are flap axis EF, Dhh, Daa, Dbb are the coefficients of a structural damp-
called spatial coordinates, the coordinates of points X 2 X0 are ing, Sa, Ia and m denote the static moment of the whole airfoil
called ALE coordinates or reference coordinates. around the elastic axis EA, the inertia moment of the whole airfoil
First, we define the domain velocity around the elastic axis EA and the mass of the whole profile, respec-
tively. The coefficient Sb is the static moment of the flap of the airfoil
@
~
wðX; tÞ ¼ xðX; tÞ: ð2:3Þ around the flap axis EF and Ib is the moment of inertia of the flap of
@t
the airfoil around the flap axis EF. Constants khh, kaa, kbb denote the
This velocity can be expressed in the spatial coordinates as spring stiffnesses of the flexible support of the airfoil, k^aa ; k
^bb are
 
~ A1
wðx; tÞ ¼ w the nonlinear torsional spring stiffnesses and dPF is the distance be-
t ðxÞ; t : ð2:4Þ
tween the elastic axis EA and the flap axis EF.
Let us consider a function f ¼ f ðx; tÞ; x 2 Xt ; t 2 ½0; T; f ðx; tÞ 2 R, The interaction between the flow and the airfoil is given by the
where R is the set of real numbers. Let us set ~f ðX; tÞ ¼ f ðAt ðXÞ; tÞ. force component L2 and the moments Ma and Mb defined by
We define the ALE derivative of the function f by Z X
2

DA
@~f L2 ¼ lq T 2j nj dS; ð2:9Þ
f ðx; tÞ ¼ ðX; tÞ; X ¼ A1
t ðxÞ: ð2:5Þ Pt [F t j¼1
Dt @t Z X
2
The application of the chain rule gives Ma ¼ lq T ij nj ð1Þi ðx1þd1i  xEA
1þd1i ÞdS; ð2:10Þ
Pt [F t i;j¼1
A
D @f Z X
f ¼ þ w  rf : ð2:6Þ 2
Dt @t Mb ¼ lq T ij nj ð1Þi ðx1þd1i  xEF
1þd1i ÞdS; ð2:11Þ
F t i;j¼1
Using relation (2.6), we obtain the Navier–Stokes equations in the
ALE form where l is the depth of the segment of the airfoil, n = (n1, n2) is the
A outer unit normal to @ Xt on CW t , the symbol dij is the Kronecker
D u
þ ððu  wÞ  rÞu þ rp  mDu ¼ 0 in Xt : ð2:7Þ symbol defined by dij = 1 for i = j and dij = 0 for i – j, x1 and x2 are
Dt
the coordinates of the point on CWt ; xEAi ; i ¼ 1; 2, are the coordi-
div u ¼ 0
nates of the current location of the elastic axis EA and xEF i , i = 1, 2,
are the coordinates of the current location of the flap elastic axis
2.2. Equations for the moving airfoil EF. The components of stress tensor are computed from the flow
velocity and the pressure by the relation
The nonlinear equations describing the vibrations with large  
@ui @uj
amplitudes of the airfoil given by the functions a, b and h read T ij ¼ pdij þ m þ : ð2:12Þ
@xj @xi
€ þ ½ðS  S Þ cos a þ S cosða þ bÞa
mh €
a b b
€ cosða þ bÞ  ðSa  Sb Þa_ 2 sin a
þSb b 2.3. Initial and boundary conditions
_ 2 sinða þ bÞ þ Dhh h_ þ khh h ¼ L2 ;
Sb ða_ þ bÞ
€ The Navier–Stokes system (2.7) is completed by the initial
½ðSa  Sb Þ cos a þ Sb cosða þ bÞh
  condition
þ ðIa  2dPF Sb Þ þ 2dPF Sb cos b a € ð2:8Þ
uðx; 0Þ ¼ u0 ðxÞ; x 2 X0 ; ð2:13Þ
þ½Ib þ dPF Sb cos bb€  dPF Sb b_ 2 sin b
^aa a3 ¼ M a ; and the following boundary conditions. On CD we prescribe the
2dPF Sb a_ b_ sin b þ Daa a_ þ kaa a þ k
Dirichlet condition
S cosða þ bÞh € þ ½I þ d S cos ba €
b b PF b
ujCD ¼ uD : ð2:14Þ
^bb b3 ¼ Mb :
€ þ dPF Sb a_ 2 sin b þ Dbb b_ þ kbb b þ k
þIb b
On the outlet CO we consider the so-called do-nothing boundary
For the derivation, see Horáček et al. [20]. The symbol L2 denotes condition
the lift, i.e. the component of the force acting on the whole airfoil
in the vertical direction, Ma is the torsional moment of the force act- @u
Þ n þ m
ðp  p ¼ 0 on CO ; ð2:15Þ
ing on the whole airfoil with respect to the axis EA, Mb is the tor- @n
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127 113

where p is a reference value of the pressure and n denotes the unit 3u  4u^n þ u
^ n1
þ ððu  wÞ  rÞu  mDu þ rp ¼ 0;
outer normal to @ Xt. On CW t we consider the condition 2s in X; ð3:3Þ
r  u ¼ 0;
ujCW ¼ wjCW : ð2:16Þ
t t
considered with the boundary conditions (2.14)–(2.16). We define
Moreover, we equip system (2.8) with the initial conditions the velocity function spaces
að0Þ ¼ a0 ; a_ ð0Þ ¼ a1 ; W ¼ ½H1 ðXÞ2 ; X ¼ fv 2 W; v jCD [CW ¼ 0g ð3:4Þ
bð0Þ ¼ b0 ; _
bð0Þ ¼ b1 ; ð2:17Þ
_hð0Þ ¼ h ; and the pressure space
hð0Þ ¼ h0 ; 1
Q ¼ L2 ðXÞ; ð3:5Þ
where a0, a1, b0, b1, h0, h1 are input parameters of the model.
The interaction of a fluid and an airfoil consists in the solution of where L2(X) is the Lebesgue space of square integrable functions
the flow problem (2.7), (2.13)–(2.16) coupled with the structural over the domain X and H1(X) is the Sobolev space of functions
model (2.8) and (2.17). This coupled problem represents a strongly square integrable together with their first order derivatives. Fur-
nonlinear dynamical system. ther, we introduce the notation
In what follows we shall be concerned with the discretization of Z
the problem and describe the algorithm for the numerical solution ða; bÞx ¼ abdx; ð; Þ ¼ ð; ÞX ð3:6Þ
x
of the complete fluid–structure interaction problem. We proceed
in such a way that first we describe separately the discretization for the scalar product in L2(x) for some set x and define the forms
of the flow problem and the structural problem in Sections 3 and
3
4, respectively. Then, in Section 5, the realization of the complete aðU  ; U; VÞ ¼ ðu; v Þ þ mðru; rv Þ þ ðððu  wnþ1 Þ  rÞu; v Þ
2s
coupled problem will be treated.
 ðp; r  v Þ þ ðr  u; qÞ; ð3:7Þ
Z
1
3. Discretization of the flow problem f ðVÞ ¼ ð4u^n  u^ n1 ; v Þ  v  ndS;
p
2s CO

3.1. Time discretization U ¼ ðu; pÞ; V ¼ ðv ; qÞ; U  ¼ ðu ; p Þ:

Now, if we multiply the first and second equation in (3.3) by
We start from the time semidiscretization. We construct an
arbitrary functions v 2 X and q 2 Q, respectively, sum them, inte-
equidistant partition of the time interval [0, T], formed by time in-
grate over X, transform the terms containing Du and rp with
stants 0 = t0 < t1 <    < T, tk = ks, where s > 0 is a time step. We use
the aid of Green’s theorem and use the boundary condition
the approximation u(tn)  un, p(tn)  pn of the exact solution and
(2.15), we arrive at the concept of a weak solution of problem
w(tn)  wn of the domain velocity at time tn.
(3.3), (2.14)–(2.16) as a couple U = (u, p) 2 X  Q satisfying the
First, we shall be concerned with the ALE derivative DAu/Dt. If
identity
X 2 X0 is a given point from the reference configuration, then for
a given time level tn we can write Atn1 ðXÞ ¼ xn1 2 Xtn1 ; aðU; U; VÞ ¼ f ðVÞ; forall V ¼ ðv ; qÞ 2 X  Q ; ð3:8Þ
Atn ðXÞ ¼ xn 2 Xtn ; Atnþ1 ðXÞ ¼ xnþ1 2 Xtnþ1 . Using definition (2.5),
we can approximate the ALE derivative of the velocity at time and conditions (2.14) and (2.16).
tn+1 and point xn+1 by the second-order two-step backward differ- In order to apply the finite element method to the numerical
ence formula solution, we assume that the domain X is a polygonal approxima-
tion of the computational domain at time tn+1. By T D we denote a
DA u ~ nþ1 ðXÞ  4u
3u ~ n ðXÞ þ u
~ n1 ðXÞ
triangulation of X formed by a finite number of closed triangles.
ðxnþ1 ; t nþ1 Þ 
Dt 2s The parameter D denotes the maximal size of elements K 2 T D .
3unþ1 ðxnþ1 Þ  4un ðxn Þ þ un1 ðxn1 Þ We assume that any two different triangles are either disjoint or
¼ : ð3:1Þ
2s intersect each other in a common face or in a common vertex
If we take into account that Atnþ1 ðA1 (cf., e.g. [7]). We use the Taylor–Hood P2/P1 elements [37]. To this
t i ðxi ÞÞ 2 Xtnþ1 and introduce the
^ i ¼ ui  Ati  A1
functions u end we introduce the finite-dimensional spaces
t nþ1 ; i ¼ n; n  1, obtained by the transfor-
mation of ui to the domain Xtnþ1 , we get the implicit scheme for Q D ¼ fq 2 CðXÞ; qjK 2 P1K ; 8K 2 T D g;
unknown functions unþ1 : Xtnþ1 # R2 and pnþ1 : Xtnþ1 # R:
W D ¼ fv 2 ½CðXÞ2 ; v jK 2 ½P2K 2 ; 8K 2 T D g; ð3:9Þ
3unþ1 4u
^ n þu
^ n1
2s
þ ððunþ1  wnþ1 Þ  rÞunþ1 X D ¼ fv 2 W D ; v jCD [ CW ¼ 0g:
mDu nþ1
þ rpnþ1 ¼ 0; in Xtnþ1 : ð3:2Þ
Here the symbol P kK denotes the space of all polynomials on K of de-
r  unþ1 ¼ 0;
gree 6k. The couple (XD, QD) satisfies the Babuška–Brezzi condition
This system is equipped with the boundary conditions (2.14)– (see, e.g. [5, 6, 38]), which is important for the stability of the finite
(2.16). element scheme.
The domain velocity w at time tn+1 is approximated by a func-
3.2. Space discretization of the flow problem tion wD ¼ wnþ1 ^i ^i
D , we use the approximations u  uD ; i ¼ n; n  1,
⁄
and approximate the forms a(U , U, V) and f(V) by
For the space discretization we shall use the finite element
3
method (FEM), which appears suitable for the solution of the flow aD ðU  ; U; VÞ ¼ ðu; v Þ þ mðru; rv Þ þ ðððu  wD Þ  rÞu; v Þ
problem because of its flexibility and accuracy. 2s
First, we reformulate the continuous problem (3.2) in a weak  ðp; r  v Þ þ ðr  u; qÞ; ð3:10Þ
sense, which is a starting point for the application of the finite ele-
Z
1 
D ;v 
ment method. Because of simplicity we shall use the notation fD ðVÞ ¼ ^ nD  u
4u ^ n1 v  ndS;
p
2s CO
X ¼ Xtnþ1 ; u ¼ unþ1 ; p ¼ pnþ1 ; w ¼ wnþ1 ; CW ¼ CW tnþ1 and write
system (3.2) in the form U ¼ ðu; pÞ; V ¼ ðv ; qÞ; U  ¼ ðu ; p Þ 2 W D  Q D :
114 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

X  
The approximate solution is defined as a couple UD = (uD, pD) 2 3
LD ðU  ; U; VÞ ¼ dKu  mDu þ ðw   rÞv ;
  rÞu þ rp; ðw
WD  QD such that biuD satisfies approximately conditions (2.14) K2T D
2s K
and (2.16) and the identity X 1 
D Þ; ðw  rÞv
F D ðVÞ ¼ dK ð4u^ nD  u
^ n1  ; ð3:12Þ
aD ðU D ; U D ; V D Þ ¼ fD ðV D Þ for all V D ¼ ðv D ; qD Þ 2 X D  Q D : ð3:11Þ K2T D
2s K
X
PD ðU; VÞ ¼ sK ðr  u; r  v ÞK ;
K2T D
3.3. Stabilization of the finite element method
where U = (u, p) U⁄ = (u⁄, p) V = (v, q), w
 ¼ u  wD and dK, sK P 0
For high Reynolds numbers approximate solutions can contain are suitable parameters.
nonphysical spurious oscillations. In order to avoid them, it is nec- The solution of the stabilized discrete problem is UD = (uD,
essary to apply a suitable stabilization of the finite element pD) 2 WD  QD such that uD satisfies approximately the boundary
scheme. Here we use the streamline-diffusion and div–div stabil- conditions (2.14) on CD and (2.16) on CW and
ization based on the forms
aD ðU D ; U D ; V D Þ þ LD ðU D ; U D ; V D Þ þ PD ðU D ; V D Þ ð3:13Þ
¼ fD ðV D Þ þ F D ðV D Þ; 8 V D ¼ ðv D ; qD Þ 2 X D  Q D :
Table 1 The couple (uD, pD) represents the approximate solution on the time
Comparison of the eigenfrequences of the system in vacuo level tn+1 defined in the domain Xtnþ1 .
h-Bending a-Torsion b-Torsion The parameters dK and sK are defined on the basis of results
f (Hz) f (Hz) f (Hz) from Gelhard et al. [16] and Lube [26] and our numerical experi-
NASTRAN 5.55 15.49 11.41 ments and tests. We put
System (2.8) 5.50 15.46 11.39
hK 
dK ¼ d nðRw
K Þ; ð3:14Þ
 L1 ðKÞ
2kwk

Table 2 where kwk L1 ðKÞ ¼ maxK jwj,

 hK is the size of K measured in the direc-
Comparison of the results computed by NASTRAN ([25]) and by the developed finite tion of the mean value of w  and
element method for the airfoil without gap (FEM0) and with gap (FEM1): (a)  w 
eigenfrequencies f for far-field airflow velocity 2 m/s, (b) critical flutter velocities vcr 
 L1 ðKÞ
hK kwk  RK
and flutter frequencies fcr. Rw
K ¼ ; nðRw
K Þ ¼ min ;1 : ð3:15Þ
2m 6
h-Bending a-Torsion b-Torsion vcr fcr
f (Hz) f (Hz) f (Hz) (m/s) (Hz) The parameters sK are defined by
NASTRAN 5.49 15.44 11.41 11.32 14.87 sK ¼ s hK kwk
 L1 ðKÞ ; s 2 ð0; 1: ð3:16Þ
FEM0 5.35 15.38 11.31 8 < vcr < 10 15.15
FEM1 5.37 15.40 11.32 11 < vcr < 12 14.89 In practical computations we use the values d⁄ = 0.025 and s⁄ = 1.

Fig. 2. Coarse mesh for NACA 0012 airfoil with a gap adapted at the airfoil and its details.
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127 115

6 3.4. Treatment of the nonlinearity in the flow model

4
The nonlinear problem (3.13) is (on each time level) solved with
2
the aid of the Oseen iterative process. Starting from an initial
h [mm]

0 approximation U nþ1D;0 at time tn+1 and assuming that the iteration

-2 U nþ1
D;m has already been computed, we define U nþ1 D;mþ1 ¼ ðuD;mþ1 ;
pD;mþ1 Þ 2 W D  M D by
-4
-6 aD ðU nþ1 nþ1 nþ1 nþ1 nþ1
D;m ; U D;mþ1 ; V D Þ þ LD ðU D;m ; U D;mþ1 ; V D Þ þ P D ðU D;mþ1 ; V D Þ
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
t [s] ¼ fD ðV D Þ þ F D ðV D Þ; 8V D ¼ ðv D ; qD Þ 2 X D  Q D : ð3:17Þ
We obtain a sequence U nþ1 D;m , m = 0, 1, . . ., and assume that it con-
4 verges to the solution U nþ1
D of Eq. (3.13). We set U 1D;0 ¼ ðu0D ; pÞ and
2
for each time level tn+1, n P 1, we set U nþ1 ^ n ^ n1 n
D;0 ¼ ð2uD  uD ; pD Þ.
In order to realize the solution of the Oseen problem (3.17) we
α [deg]

0 introduce the system of functions fwi gni¼1 X

as a basis of the space XD
 nQ
and the system of functions fqj gj¼1 , which forms a basis of the
-2
space QD. Let us assume that uD 2 W D is a function satisfying at
-4 time tn+1 the boundary conditions (2.14) and (2.16) at the nodes
(i.e. the vertices and midpoints of sides of elements K 2 T D ) lying
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
t [s] on CD and CW t , respectively, and vanishing at other nodes. The cou-
ple U nþ1
D;mþ1 can be expressed in the form
10 P
nX
uD;mþ1 ¼ uD þ U j wj ; U j 2 R; j ¼ 1; . . . ; nX ;
5 j¼1
ð3:18Þ
β [deg]

nQ
P
0 pD;mþ1 ¼ Pj qj ; Pj 2 R; j ¼ 1; . . . ; nQ :
j¼1
-5
Substituting (3.18) into (3.17), we obtain the linear system of
-10 nX + nQ equations of the saddle-point type
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1     
A BþC U F
t [s] ¼ : ð3:19Þ
BT O P G
Fig. 3. Results on three successively refined meshes: airfoil with gap, far-field
velocity 10 m/s, ..... – coarse mesh,    – refinement 1, —— – refinement 2.

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
h [mm]

8
0
6
-0.1
4
-0.2
h [mm]

2 -0.3
0 -0.4
-2 -0.5
-4 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
-6
-8
t [s]
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
1.5
t [s]
1
0.5
α [deg]

4
2 0
α [deg]

-0.5
0
-1
-2
-1.5
-4 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 t [s]
t [s] 5
4
20 3
15 2
10
β [deg]

1
β [deg]

5 0
0 -1
-5 -2
-10 -3
-15 -4
-20 -5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
t [s] t [s]

Fig. 4. Results obtained with the use of three successively decreased time steps: Fig. 5. Comparison of the results obtained with the use of the loose coupling – full
Airfoil with gap, far-field velocity 10 m/s, ..... – s = 8sref,    – s = sref, —— – s = sref/ line, and the strong coupling – dotted line, in the case of the airfoil with gap and far-
2. field velocity 10 m/s.
116 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

Here A is a nX  nX matrix, B and C are nX  nQ matrices and O is _

ZðtÞ ¼ ðhðtÞ; _
a_ ðtÞ; bðtÞÞ T
; f ¼ ðL2 ; M a ; M b ÞT ; ð4:1Þ
T nX þnQ
nQ  nQ zero matrix. The vector ðU; PÞ 2 R represents the solu- 0 1 0 1
  n onQ khh 0 0 Dhh 0 0
nX
tion U nþ1
D;mþ1 with respect to the basis S ¼ wi ;0 i¼1 ; 0;qj B C B C
j¼1 K¼@ 0 kaa 0 A; D¼@ 0 Daa 0 A; ð4:2Þ
of the space XD  QD via formulas (3.18). The solution of system 0 0 kbb 0 0 Dbb
(3.19) is realized by the direct multifrontal method by Davis [9]
implemented by package solver UMFPACK [10].
M ¼ ðM ij Þ3i;j¼1 ; ð4:3Þ
The Oseen iterative process is terminated under the condition
where the components of the nonlinear mass matrix M ¼ MðZÞ are
jaD ðU nþ1 nþ1 nþ1 nþ1
D ; U D ; V D Þ þ LD ðU D ; U D ; V D Þ
M11 ¼ m; M 12 ¼ ðSa  Sb Þ cos a þ Sb cosða þ bÞ;
þPD ðU nþ1 nþ1
D ; V D Þ  fD ðV D Þ  F D ðV D Þj 6 #kU D kL2 ðXÞ
ð3:20Þ
M13 ¼ Sb cosða þ bÞ; M 21 ¼ M 12 ;
8V D 2 S; ð4:4Þ
M22 ¼ Ia  2dPF Sb þ 2dPF Sb cos b; M 23 ¼ Ib þ dPF Sb cos b;
where # > 0 is a parameter representing the required accuracy of M31 ¼ M13 ; M 32 ¼ M 23 ; M 33 ¼ Ib :
the numerical process. In our computations, # = 0.0001 was used.
If the current iteration U nþ1 Further, we introduce the following notation: O – 3  3 zero ma-
D;mþ1 satisfies the relation (3.20), we put
U nþ1 ¼ U nþ1 trix, I – unit 3  3 matrix, 0 – 3-dimensional zero vector and g –
D D;mþ1 and finish the Oseen iterative process. As numerical
experiments show, only a few iterations (3.17), usually 3–4, have the vector of nonlinearities:
0 1
to be computed on each time level. _ 2 sinða þ bÞ
ðSa  Sb Þa_ 2 sin a þ Sb ða_ þ bÞ
B C
g¼B _2 _ ^ 3C
@ dPF Sb b sin b þ 2ðdPF Sb Þa_ b sin b  kaa a A: ð4:5Þ
4. Discretization of the structural problem ^bb b3
dPF Sb a_ 2 sin b  k
In order to solve Eq. (2.8) of motion describing the airfoil vibra- Then system (2.8) is equivalent to the first-order system
tions, we transform them to a first-order system. We introduce the
following notation: Z_ ¼ hðt; ZÞ; ð4:6Þ

250
5
4 200
3 150
2
dh/dt [mm/s]

1 100
h [mm]

0 50
-1
-2 0
-3 -50
-4
-5 -100
-6 -150
0 1 2 3 4 5
-200
t [s] -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
h [mm]

250
3 200
2 150
100
dα/dt [deg/s]

1 50
α [deg]

0 0
-50
-1 -100
-2 -150
-200
-3 -250
0 1 2 3 4 5
-300
t [s] -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
α [deg]

1000
15 800
10 600
dβ/dt [deg/s]

400
5
β [deg]

200
0 0
-5 -200
-400
-10
-600
-15 -800
0 1 2 3 4 5
-1000
t [s] -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
β [deg]

Fig. 6. Airfoil with gap: Functions h, a, b and their phase diagrams for far-field velocity 4 m/s.
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127 117

where h is the vector function defined by approach cannot be applied. Therefore, the ALE mapping is con-
!      structed with the use of the linear equations describing the defor-
M1 ðZÞ O f ðtÞ D O g mation of elastic bodies:
hðt; ZÞ ¼  Zþ : ð4:7Þ
O I O O K 0
r½ðk þ lÞr  d þ r  ðlrdÞ ¼ 0 in X0 ; ð5:1Þ
This system is equipped by the initial condition prescribing the va- where d = (d1, d2) is a displacement defined in X0. The Lamé coeffi-
lue Z(0) given by conditions (2.17). The initial value problem for cients k and l are computed by
system (4.6) is solved by the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method.
In the step from tn to tn+1 one needs the evaluation of the values Ea ra Ea
k¼ ; l¼ ; ð5:2Þ
f ð^tÞ at discrete instants ^t 2 ½t n ; tnþ1 . They are obtained by a linear ð1 þ ra Þð1  2Ea Þ 2 þ 2ra
extrapolation from the interval [tn1, tn] to [tn, tn+1]. If the values
where Ea is an artificial Young modulus and ra is an artificial Pois-
f(tn) and f(tn+1) have already been approximated, then f ð^tÞ is com-
son number.
puted by the linear interpolation in the interval [tn, tn+1].
The boundary conditions for d are prescribed by

djCD [CO ¼ 0 ð5:3Þ

5. The realization of the complete coupled problem
and on CW 0 they are determined by the functions h(t), a(t), b(t):
In this section we shall describe the algorithm of the numerical
realization of the complete fluid–structure interaction problem. d1 ¼ X 1 cos a  X 2 sin a;
X ¼ ðX 1 ; X 2 Þ 2 P0 ; ð5:4Þ
d2 ¼ X 1 sin a þ X 2 cos a þ h;
5.1. Construction of the ALE mapping for three degrees of freedom
for the main part of the airfoil and

In papers Růžička et al. [34] and Sváček et al. [36] we were con- d1 ¼ X 1 cosða þ bÞ  X 2 sinða þ bÞ þ dPF cos a;
X ¼ ðX 1 ; X 2 Þ 2 F 0 ;
cerned with flow induced vibrations of an airfoil with two degrees d2 ¼ X 1 sinða þ bÞ þ X 2 cosða þ bÞ þ dPF sin a þ h;
of freedom. In this case, the construction of the ALE mapping was
ð5:5Þ
relatively simple, based on the description of the airfoil as a solid
body. However, for an airfoil with three degrees of freedom, this for the flap of the airfoil.

5 250
4 200
3
2 150
dh/dt [mm/s]

1
h [mm]

0 100
-1 50
-2
-3 0
-4
-5 -50
-6 -100
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -150
-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
h [mm]

250
3
200
2 150
100
dα/dt [deg/s]

1
α [deg]

50
0 0
-50
-1
-100
-2 -150
-200
-3
0 1 2 3 4 5 -250
t [s] -300
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
α [deg]

1000
15 800
10 600
dβ/dt [deg/s]

5 400
β [deg]

200
0 0
-5 -200
-10 -400
-600
-15 -800
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -1000
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
β [deg]

Fig. 7. Airfoil with gap: Functions h, a, b and their phase diagrams for far-field velocity 8 m/s.
118 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

The solution of system (5.1) gives us the ALE mapping of X0 The use of linear finite elements is sufficient, because we need only
onto Xt by the relation to know the movement of the points of the mesh.
It is possible to choose the Lamé coefficients k and l as con-
At ðXÞ ¼ X þ dðXÞ; X 2 X0 ; ð5:6Þ stants, but it is more suitable to define them by (5.2), where the
for each time t. parameters Ea and ra are piecewise constant on the mesh T 0D .
System (5.1) is discretized by the conforming piecewise linear We define them by
finite elements on the mesh T 0D used for computing the velocity 1
and pressure fields in the begining of the computational process ra jK ¼ 0:25; Ea jK ¼ ; ð5:10Þ
measðKÞ
in the polygonal approximation X0D of the domain X0.
We introduce the finite element spaces where meas (K) denotes the area of an element K. The mesh around
the airfoil is typically refined into smaller triangles. Since smaller
X D ¼ fdD ¼ ðdD1 ; dD2 Þ 2 CðX0D Þ2 ; dDi jK 2 P1K 8K 2 T 0D ; i ¼ 1; 2g;ð5:7Þ triangles imply the larger Young modulus Ea in (5.10), the mesh
around the airfoil moves with the airfoil and therefore the deforma-
V D ¼ fuD 2 X D ; uD ðQ Þ ¼ 0 for all vertices Q 2 @ X0 g;
tion of elements close to the airfoil is small.
and the form If the displacement dD is computed at time tn+1, then in view of
(5.6), the approximation of the ALE mapping is obtained in the

BD ðdD ; uD Þ ¼ ðk þ lÞðr  dD Þ; ðr  uD Þ X0D
form

þ lrdD ; ruD X : ð5:8Þ Atnþ1 D ðXÞ ¼ X þ dD ðXÞ; X 2 X0D : ð5:11Þ
0D

The knowledge of the ALE mapping at the time instants tn1, tn, tn+1
Then the approximate solution of problem (5.1), (5.3)–(5.5) is de-
allows us to approximate the domain velocity with the aid of the
fined as a function dD 2 X D satisfying the Dirichlet boundary condi-
second-order backward difference formula
tions defined by (5.3)–(5.5) with the values of h, a, b at time tn+1 and
considered at the vertices lying on @ X0 and the identity 3x  4Atn D ðA1 1
t nþ1 D ðxÞÞ þ Atn1 D ðAt nþ1 D ðxÞÞ
wnþ1
D ðxÞ ¼ ; x 2 Xtnþ1 D :
2s
BD ðdD ; uD Þ ¼ 0 8uD 2 V D : ð5:9Þ
ð5:12Þ

250
6
200
4
150
dh/dt [mm/s]

2
h [mm]

100
0
50
-2 0
-4 -50
-6 -100
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -150
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
h [mm]

250
3
200
2 150
100
dα/dt [deg/s]

1 50
α [deg]

0 0
-50
-1 -100
-2 -150
-200
-3 -250
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -300
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
α [deg]

1200
15 1000
10 800
600
dβ/dt [deg/s]

5 400
β [deg]

0 200
0
-5 -200
-10 -400
-600
-15
0 1 2 3 4 5 -800
t [s] -1000
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
β [deg]

Fig. 8. Airfoil with gap: functions h, a, b and their phase diagrams for far-field velocity 10 m/s.
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127 119

5.2. Computation of aerodynamic forces acting on the airfoil
In the case when the flap is not separated from the main body of
the airfoil, the aerodynamic forces L2, Ma, Mb at time tn+1 are com-
puted from (2.9)–(2.11) by using the approximation of the stress
tensor (2.12) known from the solution UD = (uD, pD) of the stabi-
lized discrete flow problem (3.13) and extrapolated to the bound-
ary. The integrals in (2.9)–(2.11) are computed with the aid of
numerical quadratures. In the case, when the flap is separated from
the main body of the airfoil, i.e. Pt \ Ft = ;, the force and moments
can be computed on the basis of a weak formulation similarly as
in Sváček et al. [36].
5.3. Coupling procedure
In the solution of the complete coupled fluid–structure interac-
tion problem it is necessary to apply a suitable coupling procedure.
See, e.g. Badia and Codina [1] for a general framework. Here we ap-
ply the following algorithm.
2. Extrapolate linearly L2, Ma and Mb from the interval [tn1, tn]
to [tn, tn+1]. Set m := 0.
3. Prediction of h, a, b: Compute the displacement h and angles a
and b at time tn+1 as the solution of system (4.6) by the Run-
ge–Kutta method. Denote it by h⁄, a⁄, b⁄.
4. On the basis of h⁄, a⁄, b⁄ determine the position of the airfoil
at time tn+1, the domain Xtnþ1 D , the ALE mapping Atnþ1 D and the
domain velocity wnþ1 D .
5. Solve the nonlinear discrete stabilized problem (3.13) at time
tn+1 by the Oseen iterations.
6. Correction of h, a, b: Compute L2, Ma and Mb from (2.9)–(2.11) at
time tn+1 and interpolate L2, Ma and Mb on [tn, tn+1]. Compute h,
a, b at time tn+1 from (4.6) by the Runge–Kutta method.
7. If jh⁄  hj + ja⁄  aj + jb⁄  bj P e and m < M, set h⁄ = h, a⁄ = a,
b⁄ = b, m: = m + 1 and go to 4. Otherwise, n:=n + 1 and go to 2.
If M = 0, then we get a loose (weak) coupling of the flow and
structural problems. With increasing M and decreasing e, the cou-
pling becomes stronger.

0. Prescribe e > 0 – the measure of accuracy in the coupling pro-
cedure, and an integer M P 0 – the maximal number of iter-
ations in the coupling procedure.
1. Assume that the solution UD = (uD, pD) of the discrete flow
problem (3.13) and the force L2 and torsional moments Ma
and Mb computed from (2.9)–(2.11) are known at time levels
tn1 and tn.
6. Numerical tests
In this section we shall carry out test computations in order to
analyze the robustness, accuracy and reliability of the described
method and to demonstrate its applicability.
In computations, we use the dimensionless form of the Na-
vier–Stokes equations. We introduce the reference velocity U,

300
6
250
4 200
dh/dt [mm/s]

2 150
h [mm]

0 100
50
-2
0
-4
-50
-6 -100
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -150
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
h [mm]

300
4
3 200
2
dα/dt [deg/s]

1 100
α [deg]

0
0
-1
-2 -100
-3
-4 -200
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -300
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
α [deg]

1500
15
10 1000
dβ/dt [deg/s]

5 500
β [deg]

0
0
-5
-500
-10
-15 -1000
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -1500
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
β [deg]

Fig. 9. Airfoil with gap: functions h, a, b and their phase diagrams for far-field velocity 12 m/s.
120 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

which is in our case the far-field flow velocity, and the refer- t u x p UL
t ¼ ; u ¼ ; x ¼ ; p ¼ ; Re ¼ : ð6:1Þ
ence length L, which is the length of the airfoil. We define T ref U L pref m
the reference time Tref = L/U and the reference pressure pref = U2.
The scaled dimensionless quantities and the Reynolds number Applying these substitutions in (2.7), we get the dimensionless Na-
are defined by vier–Stokes equations in the form

0.25 0.25
0.2 0.2
|G(h)|

|G(h)|
0.15 0.15
0.1 0.1
0.05 0.05
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

0.18 0.2
0.16 0.18
0.14 0.16
0.12 0.14
|G(α)|

|G(α)|
0.1 0.12
0.08 0.1
0.08
0.06 0.06
0.04 0.04
0.02 0.02
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

0.45 0.7
0.4 0.6
0.35 0.5
0.3
|G(β)|

|G(β)|

0.25 0.4
0.2 0.3
0.15 0.2
0.1
0.05 0.1
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

Fig. 10. Airfoil with gap: spectral analysis for far-field velocities 4 m/s (left) and 8 m/s (right).

0.25 0.25
0.2 0.2
|G(h)|

|G(h)|

0.15 0.15
0.1 0.1
0.05 0.05
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

0.6 1.8
1.6
0.5 1.4
0.4 1.2
|G(α)|

|G(α)|

1
0.3 0.8
0.2 0.6
0.4
0.1 0.2
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

2.5 8
7
2 6
5
|G(β)|

|G(β)|

1.5
4
1 3
0.5 2
1
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

Fig. 11. Airfoil with gap: spectral analysis for far-field velocities 10 m/s (left) and 12 m/s (right).
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127 121

DA 1 The damping coefficients Dhh, Daa, Dbb are assumed to be zero.

Dt 
u þ ððu  w Þ  rÞu þ rp  Re Mu ¼ 0;
ð6:2Þ The fluid density q = 1.225 kg/m3 and the kinematic viscosity
r  u ¼ 0:
m = 1.5  105 m2/s. In our test computations, the Reynolds num-
We performed computations for the airfoil configurations consid- ber was in the range between 4  104 and 4  105.
ered by Losı́k and Čečrdle in [24,25], where the authors computed The initial conditions for the structural system in all computa-
the flutter characteristics of a wing profile model by the MSC.NAS- tions were set to
TRAN package, which is based on a linear description of the struc-
ture behaviour and does not allow the solution in the case of _
hð0Þ ¼ 5 mm; hð0Þ ¼ 0 mm=s;
large amplitudes, when nonlinear effects are significant. að0Þ ¼ 3 ;

a_ ð0Þ ¼ 0  =s; ð6:3Þ
The numerical simulation was carried out for the airfoil NACA _
bð0Þ ¼ 0  ; bð0Þ ¼ 0  =s:
0012 of length 0.3 m. The axis EA is placed at 40% of the length
of the whole airfoil measured from the leading edge and the axis The computational process started from the solution of the flow
EF is placed at 80% of the length of the whole airfoil. We consider past a fixed airfoil at time t = 0.01 s. At time t = 0.0 s the airfoil
the situations, when the flap is attached to the main body of the was released and the computation of the interaction started.
airfoil without any gap, and when the flap is separated from the The frequency analysis of the numerically simulated displace-
main body of the airfoil by the gap of the width g = 0.012 m. The ments c = h, a, b was carried out with the aid of the Fourier
following structural parameters were chosen chosen according to transform
[24,25]:
Z T
m ¼ 0:086622 kg; khh ¼ 105:109 N=m; Gðfn Þ ¼ cðtÞe2pifn t dt ð6:4Þ
0
kaa ¼ 3:69558 N m=rad; kbb ¼ 0:2 N m=rad;
Sa ¼ 0:000779598 kg m; Sb ¼ 0 kg m; with fn = nDf 2 [0, 50], Df = 0.1 Hz, approximated by the rectangle
2
Ia ¼ 0:000487291 kg m ; Ib ¼ 0:0000341104 kg m ; 2 formula
^aa ¼ 0 N m=rad3 ; k
k ^bb ¼ 0 or 5 N m=rad3 ; X
N1
Gðfn Þ ¼ cðtk Þe2pifn tk Dt: ð6:5Þ
dPF ¼ 0:12 m; l ¼ 0:079 m: k¼0

250
5
4 200
3 150
dh/dt [mm/s]

2 100
h [mm]

1
0 50
-1 0
-2 -50
-3
-4 -100
-5 -150
0 1 2 3 4 5
-200
t [s] -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
h [mm]

250
3 200
2 150
100
dα/dt [deg/s]

1 50
α [deg]

0 0
-50
-1 -100
-2 -150
-200
-3 -250
0 1 2 3 4 5
-300
t [s] -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
α [deg]

1000
15 800
10 600
400
dβ/dt [deg/s]

5
β [deg]

200
0 0
-5 -200
-10 -400
-600
-15 -800
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -1000
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
β [deg]

Fig. 12. Airfoil without gap: functions h, a, b and their phase diagrams for far-field velocity 2 m/s.
122 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

Here i is the imaginary unit, Dt = T/N and N is the number of time
steps in the interval [0, T). The results of the frequency analysis
are shown in graphs of the quantity
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
jGðfn Þj ¼ R2 ðGðfn ÞÞ þ I2 ðGðfn ÞÞ:
In what follows, we present the results of several test computa-
tions. In Sections 6.1 and 6.2 we use the structural parameters men-
tioned above with k ^aa ¼ k
^bb ¼ 0. In Section 6.3 we consider this case
as well as the case of nonzero nonlinear torsional stiffness.
6.1. Comparison with NASTRAN computations
In Table 1 we compare the eigen frequences of the airfoil in va-
cuo, i.e. without flow past the airfoil, computed with the aid of the
MSC.NASTRAN package and on the basis of the nonlinear system
(2.8) with linear torsional stiffness and Fourier analysis. We see a
good agreement.
Further, in Table 2 we present the vibration eigenfrequences of
the functions h, a, b, for the far-field flow velocity 2m/s, critical flut-
ter velocity and frequency computed by the presented method, com-
pared with the NASTRAN computations. FEM0 and FEM1 denote the
results for the airfoil without gap and with gap, respectively. The
shown results are again in good agreement. The comparison of the
critical velocity computed by MSC.NASTRAN package with our re-
sults indicates that MSC.NASTRAN is more suitable for the analysis
of an airfoil with gap than an airfoil without gap.
6.2. Convergence analysis
In this section we shall present the results of experimental con-
vergence analysis. We solve the coupled fluid–structure interaction
problem using successively refined space meshes and successively
decreasing time steps. Moreover, we are concerned with the effect
of the loose and strong coupling.
1) First we solve the coupled problem in the case of the airfoil
with gap for the far-field velocity 10 m/s with the use of the
small time step s = 0.0003 s on three non-nested meshes
with 4203 vertices and 8256 elements (coarse mesh),
28,924 vertices and 57,364 elements (refinement 1) and
87,905 vertices and 175,032 elements (refinement 2).
Fig. 2 shows the coarse mesh and its details. In Fig. 3 we
show the graphs of h, a, b in dependence on time obtained
on these meshes. One can observe the convergence of the
results, when the mesh is successively refined. Since the
results computed on both refined meshes are practically
identical, the solution of other test problems presented in
Section 6.3 was carried out with the aid of the mesh ‘‘refine-
ment 1’’, in order to save computational time.
2) The second test analyzes experimentally the convergence for
decreasing time step. In this case, the space mesh ‘‘refine-
ment 2’’ was used (overkill in the space discretization) and
the coupled problem with the far-field velocity 10 m/s was
solved with three time steps s = 8sref, s = sref = 0.0003 s,

250
5
4 200
3 150
2
dh/dt [mm/s]

1 100
h [mm]

0 50
-1
-2 0
-3 -50
-4
-5 -100
-6 -150
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -200
-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
h [mm]

250
3
200
2 150
100
dα/dt [deg/s]

1
α [deg]

50
0 0
-50
-1
-100
-2 -150
-200
-3
0 1 2 3 4 5 -250
t [s] -300
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
α [deg]

1000
15
800
10 600
dβ/dt [deg/s]

5 400
β [deg]

200
0
0
-5 -200
-10 -400
-600
-15
0 1 2 3 4 5 -800
t [s] -1000
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
β [deg]

Fig. 13. Airfoil without gap: functions h, a, b and their phase diagrams for far-field velocity 4 m/s.
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127 123

s = sref/2. Fig. 4 shows the comparison of h, a, b in depen-
dence on time for these three time steps. On the basis of
these results, the computations presented in Section 6.3
were computed with time step sref.
3) An important issue is the use of the loose or strong coupling.
Fig. 5 shows the comparison between the time dependence
of h, a, b computed by the algorithm presented in Section 5.3
with the aid of the loose coupling (M = 0) and the ‘‘strong’’
coupling with prescribed accuracy e = 105 and the maxinal
number of iterations M = 50. In our numerical experiments
the prescribed accuracy was achived after m 6 5 iterations
in each time step. It is interesting that there is a very small
difference between the rotation angles computed with the
aid of the loose and strong coupling. On the other hand,
the influence of the choice of the type of coupling on the
behaviour of the displacement h is quite significant. This is
the reason that in our numerical tests the strong coupling
was used.
6.3. Airfoil vibrations analysis in dependence on the far-field velocity
In this section, we analyze the development of airfoil vibrations
in dependence on the far-field velocity starting from damped re-
gimes up to limit cycle oscillation (LCO) and flutter.
1) First we assume that the coefficients in the nonlinear tor-
^aa ¼ k
sional spring stiffness k ^bb ¼ 0. In Figs. 6–11, the graphs
of the functions h, a, b, their phase diagrams and spectral
analysis are shown for far-field velocities 4, 8, 10, 12 m/s
in the case of the airfoil with gap.
For small far-field flow velocities the vibration amplitudes of
vertical displacement h and the rotation angles a, b of the
airfoil are decreasing in time (see Figs. 6 and 7). The system
is stable and low level sustained vibrations are caused by
vortex separation on the airfoil. The vibration frequencies
of the airfoil (see Fig. 10) are close to the eigenfrequencies
of the structure in vacuo and correspond to the eigenfre-
quencies computed by NASTRAN (see Tables 1 and 2).
By increasing the far-field flow velocity, the second and third
resonance frequencies are getting closer, which is a typical
behaviour for pre-flutter regimes of the airfoil vibration,
when the coupling between the rotation of the main part
of the airfoil and the flap rotation becomes stronger (see
Figs. 8, 9 and 11 for 10 m/s and 12 m/s). The vibration flutter
regime at 12 m/s can be considered as a stable limit cycle
oscillation (LCO) regime with large amplitudes of the flap
vibrations around 14 deg for the rotation angle b, and the
flutter frequency 14.89 Hz. In Fig. 11 one can see that both
higher frequencies of the self-oscillating airfoil for the rota-
tion angles a and b merge together. Significant vortices are

250
5
4 200
3
2 150
dh/dt [mm/s]

1
h [mm]

0 100
-1 50
-2
-3 0
-4
-5 -50
-6 -100
0 1 2 3 4 5
t [s] -150
-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
h [mm]

250
3
200
2 150
100
dα/dt [deg/s]

1
α [deg]

50
0 0
-1 -50
-100
-2 -150
-3 -200
0 1 2 3 4 5 -250
t [s] -300
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
α [deg]

1000
15
800
10 600
dβ/dt [deg/s]

5 400
β [deg]

200
0
0
-5 -200
-10 -400
-15 -600
0 1 2 3 4 5 -800
t [s] -1000
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
β [deg]

Fig. 14. Airfoil without gap: functions h, a, b and their phase diagrams for far-field velocity 8 m/s.
124 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

generated on the flap surface and behind the profile (see
Figs. 19 and 20).
For the higher flow velocity (14 m/s), the LCO is unstable and
the amplitude of the rotation angle b is increasing in time
reaching higher values, up to about 18 deg for the flap
motion during 0.7 s (see Fig. 18). The simulation stopped
due to numerical problems caused by the large mesh defor-
mation.
These results are in agreement with the NASTRAN computa-
tions, according to which the system becomes unstable by
flutter in torsion for the far-field flow velocity at 11.32 m/s
and the flutter frequency 14.87 Hz (see Table 2).
2) In Figs. 12–16 we present results obtained for the airfoil
without the gap. The development of the amplitude of vibra-
tions in dependence on the far-field velocity is qualitatively
similar to the results obtained for the airfoil with the gap, if
the far-field velocity is small, but the flutter is obtained fas-
ter, when the far-field velocity increases. It can be explained
by an interference of the flow in the gap with the main flow.
Fig. 17 shows the vibrations of the airfoil without gap for the
far-field velocity 20 m/s and initial conditions for the airfoil
position h(0) = 10 mm, a(0) = 5°, b(0) = 0°. This example,
when the angle b of the flap rotation attains the values up
to 25°, shows that the developed method is applicable to

0.25 0.25
0.2 0.2
|G(h)|

|G(h)|
0.15 0.15
0.1 0.1
0.05 0.05
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

0.14 0.25
0.12
0.2
0.1
|G(α)|

|G(α)|

0.08 0.15
0.06 0.1
0.04
0.02 0.05
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

0.4 0.7
0.35 0.6
0.3 0.5
0.25
|G(β)|

|G(β)|

0.4
0.2
0.3
0.15
0.1 0.2
0.05 0.1
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

Fig. 15. Airfoil without gap: spectral analysis for far-field velocities 2 m/s (left) and 4 m/s (right).

0.25 0.5
0.45
0.2 0.4
0.35
|G(α)|
|G(h)|

0.15 0.3
0.25
0.1 0.2
0.15
0.05 0.1
0.05
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz] frequency [Hz]

1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
|G(β)|

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 5 10 15 20
frequency [Hz]

Fig. 16. Airfoil without gap: spectral analysis for far-field velocity 8 m/s.
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127 125

15 6
4
2

h [mm]
10
0
-2
5 -4
-6
-h [mm]

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

0 t [s]

4
-5
3
2
1

α [deg]
-10 0
-1
-2
-15 -3
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
-4
time [s] 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
t [s]
5
20
4 15
10
3

β [deg]
5
0
2 -5
-10
1
-15
-20
α [°]

0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

t [s]
-1
Fig. 18. Airfoil with gap: comparison of airfoil vibrations for far-field velocity 14 m/
-2
s in the case of linear spring stiffness (large amplitudes marked by full line) and
nonlinear spring vibrations (smaller amplitudes marked by dotted line).
-3

-4

-5 6
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
time [s] 4
2
h [mm]

30 0
-2

20 -4
-6
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
t [s]
10

3
β [°]

0 2
1
α [deg]

0
-10
-1
-2
-20 -3
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
t [s]
-30
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 15
time [s] 10
5
β [deg]

Fig. 17. Airfoil without gap: functions h, a, b for far-field velocity 20 m/s. 0
-5
-10
the simulation of flow induced postcritical airfoil vibrations -15
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
with large amplitudes.
t [s]
Both in the case of the airfoil with gap and without gap, we
can observe an interesting phenomenon that in the range of Fig. 19. Airfoil with gap: points on the graphs of the functions h, a, b corresponding
low far-field velocities with a small increase of its magnitude to the velocity fields computed for the far-field velocity 12 m/s, shown in Fig. 20.
126 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127

Fig. 20. Airfoil with gap: velocity distribution for the far-field velocity 12 m/s.

the vibrations amplitude is decreasing (compare Fig. 6 with
Fig. 7 and Fig. 12 with Fig. 13). It is caused by aerodynamic
damping forces. This phenomenon disappears with a suffi-
cient increase of the far-field velocity.
3) Further, we investigated the influence of the nonlinear tor-
sional spring stiffness. Fig. 18 show the comparison of vibra-
tions of the airfoil with gap for linear flap spring stiffness
and nonlinear flap spring stiffness k ^bb ¼ 5 N m=rad3 in the
case of the far-field velocity 14 m/s. In the case of linear stiff-
ness (similarly as in Fig. 17), the amplitude of vibrations
becomes large with increasing time, which causes the col-
laps of the computational process due to a large deformation
of the computational mesh. The additional cubic nonlinear
spring stiffness reduces the vibrations amplitude and
changes the flutter type from a catastrophic to the benign.
7. Conclusion
The paper is concerned with the development, analysis and
applications of the numerical method for the simulation of flow in-
duced vibrations of an airfoil with three degrees of freedom.
The fluid flow is described by the 2D incompressible Navier
Stokes equations in the ALE formulation allowing to take into ac-
count time dependence of the computational domain for large
 M. Feistauer et al. / Computers & Fluids 49 (2011) 110–127
deformations of the structure in postcritical regimes, when the
aeroelastic system is unstable by flutter or divergence. The high
values of the vibration amplitudes encountered in such regimes
(e.g., in rotation up to 25°) need to describe the dynamic behaviour
of the studied airfoil by three nonlinear equations of motion with
nonlinear mass and stiffness matrices. The coupled system of PDEs
for the fluid flow and ODEs for the airfoil motion is solved by the
FEM for the flow field around the oscillating profile and the Run-
ge–Kutta method for the integration of equations for the profile
motion in time domain. Good agreement of the results was ob-
tained, both for the flutter frequency and the critical flutter flow
velocity determined from the numerically simulated airfoil mo-
tions in time domain, with the MSC.NASTRAN computations using
the frequency-modal analysis considering the linear model of
vibrations and the doublet-lattice aerodynamic theory [24,25].
From the mathematical point of view, the paper presents an
accurate and robust technique for the simulation of flow induced
airfoil vibrations. It contains a detailed description of all important
ingredients necessary for the realization of the general framework
proposed, e.g. in [1] or [15]. Moreover, the paper contains an exper-
imental convergence analysis with respect to the mesh refinement
in space and time. Presented numerical results prove the applica-
bility and robustness of the method.
The most significant contribution of the paper from the point of
view of computational aeroelasticity and fluid dynamics consists in
developing the numerical method for the simulation of postcritical
behaviour of the 3-DOF airfoil system after losing the aeroelastic
stability. Estimation of vibrations with large amplitudes of the air-
foil with flap could be used instead of expensive experiments on
aeroelastic models performed in wind tunnels with a possible
destruction of the models, or dangerous flutter tests carried out
on airplane prototypes. The numerical simulations allow the anal-
ysis of number of cases in a relatively short computational time
and by much more lower financial expenses than needed for flutter
experiments.
There are the following subjects for further work:
- to include turbulence modelling in the numerical simulation of
flow induced airfoil vibrations,
- to extend the developed technique to the coupling of compress-
ible flow with a vibrating airfoil.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported under the Research Plan MSM
0021620839 of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.
It was also partly supported under the Grants No. 201/08/0012
and (in the year 2011) P101/11/0207 of the Czech Science
Foundation.
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