Particle image velocimetry （PIV） experimental results of wake flow structure of a NACA0012 airfoil with small attack angle mounted above water surface are introduced.The experiment was carried out in a small-scale wind-wave tunnel.The diameter of wind-wave tunnel test section is 1.7 m （long） × 0.4 m （width） × 0.4 m （height）.The flow fields around the airfoil were measured under four diffierent conditions by varying the distance between the airfoil and the water surface.The attack angle of the airfoil was kept 10- during the experiment.For each experimental condition,the time series of particle images was captured to calculate continuous evolution of the velocity fields.The velocity fields were ensemble averaged to get the statistic parameters such as mean velocity and vorticity.Typical instantaneous velocity fields for each case are introduced to show the basic flow structure of wind surface flow separation.The aerodynamic loads acting on the airfoil are analyzed qualitatively according to the mean vorticity distribution in the flow field based on the theory of vorticity aerodynamics.The results indicate that the flow structures and drag/lift force of the airfoil alter remarkably with the changing distance between the airfoil and water surface.
The near-wake flow of a NACA0012 airfoils mounted above a water surface were experimentally studied in a wind/wave tunnel. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of the free surface on the structure of the airfoil trailing wake. The flow structure was measured with different ride heights between the airfoil and free surface using a Particle Image Velocimetry （PIV） system. The Reynolds number based on the chord length of the airfoil was about 3.5×10^3. For each experimental condition, large amount of instantaneous velocity fields were captured and ensemble-averaged to get the spatial distributions of mean velocity and mean vorticity, as well as turbulence statistics. The results show that the flow structures of the airfoil wake varies remarkably with the change in the ride height.
