Advanced panel-type influence coefficient methods applied to unsteady three dimensional potential flows

Abstract

A panel method for solving unsteady, subsonic wind-body-tail flow problems is formulated and partially verified. The method is applicable to general aircraft configurations consisting of arbitrary arrangements of wings, bodies, tails, and nacelles. The wake may be located arbitrarily and the unsteady, transverse component of vorticity in the wake may be assigned any covection velocity. The wake in the unsteady flow problem, therefore, can be given the location and convection velocity of the wake produced by a steady flow which is the mean flow of the unsteady flow problem. The panel method has been used as a basis for expanding the unsteady kernel function in a power series to obtain panel influence coefficients which can be integrated in closed form.