A least squares finite element scheme for transonic flow around harmonically oscillating airfoils

The present investigation shows that a finite element scheme with a weighted least squares variational principle is applicable to the problem of transonic flow around a harmonically oscillating airfoil. For the flat plate case, numerical results compare favorably with the exact solution. The obtained numerical results for the transonic problem, for which an exact solution is not known, have the characteristics of known experimental results. It is demonstrated that the performance of the employed numerical method is independent of equation type (elliptic or hyperbolic) and frequency. The weighted least squares principle allows the appropriate modeling of singularities, which such a modeling of singularities is not possible with normal least squares.