PREDICTION OF VISCOUS TRAILING VORTEX STRUCTURE FROM BASIC LOADING PARAMETERS

An analytical method has been developed to predict the structure of a fully developed trailing vortex with a viscous core, Vortex structure is calculated from the load distribution on the generating wing and fu ndamental conservation laws are satisfied. The present rollup model im plicitly addresses viscous effects in the vortex core region by assumi ng a turbulent mixing process in the core during formation, Mixing the ory suggests the appropriate functional form of the solution velocity profiles within this region, with constants that are determined unique ly by the method for arbitrary wing loading distributions. Important s tructural properties such as vortex strength, core size, and peak swir l velocity are calculated directly from these solution constants. The viscous core model was validated against two recent experimental studi es, which provided new insight into vortex growth.