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Circulation Measurements About A Rapidly Pitching Airfoil Using An Ultrasonic System, F. J. Weber, Jr., William W. Durgin, H. Johari

Office of the Provost Scholarship

An ultrasonic system was developed to measure the circulation about a sinusoidally pitching NACA 4418 airfoil. The system consisted of two opposing ultrasonic ranging modules arranged such that the differences between the sound propagation times in opposite directions could be related to the instantaneous circulation. For the stationary airfoil, the measured lift coefficient was within 5% of the tabulated data while the observed stall angle was 2° less than the tabulated value. Measured hysteresis loops verified the applicability of the ultrasonic system to the dynamic stall problem. Measured maximum lift coefficients increased linearly with reduced frequency up to a value …