Abstract
The phenomenon of flutter and tumble of objects in free fall has been studied using two-dimensional numerical simulations of uniform flow past a plate which is free to rotate about a fixed axis through its centroid. Particular focus is on the effect of Reynolds number and plate thickness-to-length ratio on the flutter-to-tumble transition and on the observed frequency of the angular motions. Simulations indicate that the tendency to tumble increases with increasing Reynolds number and decreasing thickness ratio. A case is also made that the tumbling frequency for two-dimensional plates is governed by a Karman type vortex shedding process. These results for this pinned plate have also been verified by simulating a limited number of free-fall cases.
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M.Y. Hussaini
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Mittal , R., Seshadri , V. & Udaykumar , H. Flutter, Tumble and Vortex Induced Autorotation. Theoret Comput Fluid Dynamics 17, 165–170 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00162-003-0101-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00162-003-0101-5