Unsteady flow phenomena over delta wings at high angle of attack

TLDR: In this article, the authors show that coherent pressure fluctuations observed on delta wings are due to the helical mode instability of the vortex breakdown flow field, which implies increasing wavelength in the streamwise direction.

Abstract: Experiments show that coherent pressure fluctuations observed on delta wings are due to the helical mode instability of the vortex breakdown flowfield. No dominant frequency in the spectra of pressure fluctuations on the wing surface was observed after the breakdown reached the apex of the wing, although the vortex shedding could be detected in the wake. Measurements of pressure fluctuations at different streamwise locations on the wing suggest that the dimensionless frequency fx/U^ is nearly constant for a given geometry, which implies increasing wavelength in the streamwise direction. For different wings, this nondimensional frequency is shown to be a function of nondimensional circulation T/U^x only. Both the wavelength of the disturbances and the core radius increase with the nondimensional circulation at a fixed streamwise location. The wavelength normalized by the core radius is around 3-4, which is much smaller than the predictions for the Q vortex.