POTENTIAL FLOW ANALYSIS OF MULTIELEMENT AIRFOILS USING CONFORMAL MAPPING

Conformal mapping techniques are applied to the problem of calculating the two-dimensional potential flow about multielement airfoils. Airfoil geometry is completely arbitrary and, unlike other mapping methods, any number of airfoil elements can be considered. The multiple airfoil elements are transformed to the same number of circles by successive applications of a method for mapping a single body to a unit circle. The flow about the multiple circles is analyzed using multiply-reflected doublets and vortices. All iterative procedures converge rapidly, giving accurate results with considerably better computational efficiency than existing distributedsingularity panel methods. © 1979 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., All rights reserved.