English

Wall-resolved large eddy simulations of a pitching airfoil incurring in deep dynamic stall

Fluid Dynamics 2026-02-09 v2

Abstract

This study investigates the flow evolution around a sinusoidal pitching NACA 0012 airfoil, defined by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), undergoing deep dynamic stall using a wall-resolved large eddy simulation (LES) approach. Numerical results are assessed against experimental data from Lee and Gerontakos (2004) at Reynolds number Re = 135 000 and reduced frequency k = 0.1. A comprehensive analysis of the computational model span size is presented, highlighting the requirement for a span-to-chord ratio of at least one to correctly capture the dynamic stall vortex physics in the downstroke phase. Furthermore, a comparative assessment with state-of-the-art Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS), hybrid RANS/LES, and the experimental data is carried out. All the numerical models concur to the same flow behavior and exhibit similar differences with the experiments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.12036,
  title  = {Wall-resolved large eddy simulations of a pitching airfoil incurring in deep dynamic stall},
  author = {Giacomo Baldan and Alberto Guardone},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.12036},
  year   = {2026}
}