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Starting Flow Past an Airfoil and its Acquired Lift in a Superfluid
Seth Musser1, Davide Proment2, Miguel Onorato3
1Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Abstract:
We investigate superfluid flow around an airfoil accelerated to a finite velocity from rest. Using simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation we find striking similarities to viscous flows: from production of starting vortices to convergence of airfoil circulation onto a quantized version of the Kutta-Joukowski circulation. We predict the number of quantized vortices nucleated by a given foil via a phenomenological argument. We further find stall-like behavior governed by airfoil speed, not angle of attack, as in classical flows. Finally we analyze the lift and drag acting on the airfoil.
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