Flow Induced Fluttering and Autorotation of a Hinged Vertical Flat Plate

Abstract

This paper addresses the investigations on fluttering and autorotation motions which may occur in the interaction of uniform current and freely rotating plate about a fixed vertical axis. The autorotation is a name given to the case that the plate turns continuously about the vertical axis and the fluttering motion is the periodic or chaotic oscillations of the plate around the vertical axis. According to the dimensional analysis the motion in flow induced rotation motion is governed essentially by dimensionless moment of inertia, Reynolds number and initial conditions. Certain combinations define the stability boundaries between fluttering and autorotation. Hence, a bifurcation diagram was prepared by the experiments to classify different states observed the small fluttering, fluttering and autorotation based on different Reynolds number and dimensionless moment of inertia.