Experimental study of flow field on the blunt airfoil at very low Reynolds number

This article investigates experimental study of the flow field on a blunt airfoil. For this purpose, PIV technique based on instantaneous flow structures is used in order to view and two dimensional investigation of flow field around unmodified and blunt airfoil and at different times. This study is performed on flows at very low Reynolds number(Reynolds number lower than 4500). This flow regime is very similar to dominant condition on micro air vehicles (MAVs). In order to validate the method used in this study, flow field around cylinder is considered and in continue, instantaneous and mean velocities fields, streamlines and mean vortices field around unmodified and blunt airfoils are obtained. The results show that there are prominent differences on the structure of wake around airfoils and sizes of separation region for blunt and simple airfoils. Meanwhile separation of the flow for both blunt and simple airfoils at this very low Reynolds number, is occurred at angle of attack 5 (at low angle of attack). Also generation of vortex at wake region and their position and circulation at different times, are discussed.