Unsteady aerodynamics of vortical flows: Early and recent developments

The development of aerodynamic theories of streaming motions around bodies with unsteady vortical and entropic disturbances is reviewed. The basic concepts associated with such motions, their interaction with solid boundaries and their noise generating mechanisms are described. The theory was first developed in the approximation wherein the unsteady flow is linearized about a uniform mean lfow. This approach has been extensively developed and used in aeroelastic and aeroacoustic calculations. The theory was recently extended to account for the effect of distortion of the incident disturbances by the nonuniform mean flow around the body. This effect is found to have a significant influence on the unsteady aerodynamic force along the body surface and the sound radiated in the far field. Finally, the nonlinear characteristics of unsteady transonic flows are reviewed and recent results of linear and nonlinear computations are presented.