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A vortex sheet is a term used in fluid mechanics for a surface across which there is a discontinuity in fluid velocity, such as in slippage of one layer of fluid over another. [1] While the tangential components of the flow velocity are discontinuous across the vortex sheet, the normal component of the flow velocity is continuous.
The Vortex lattice method, (VLM), is a numerical method used in computational fluid dynamics, mainly in the early stages of aircraft design and in aerodynamic education at university level. The VLM models the lifting surfaces, such as a wing , of an aircraft as an infinitely thin sheet of discrete vortices to compute lift and induced drag .
However, on a highly-swept wing leading-edge separation still occurs but instead creates a vortex sheet that rolls up above the wing producing spanwise flow beneath. Flow not entrained by the vortex passes over the top of the vortex and reattaches to the wing surface. [5] The vortex generates a high negative pressure field on the top of the wing.
Visualisation of the vortex street behind a circular cylinder in air; the flow is made visible through release of glycerol vapour in the air near the cylinder. In fluid dynamics, a Kármán vortex street (or a von Kármán vortex street) is a repeating pattern of swirling vortices, caused by a process known as vortex shedding, which is responsible for the unsteady separation of flow of a fluid ...
Euler computation of a tip vortex rolling up from the trailed vorticity sheet. When a wing generates aerodynamic lift , it results in a region of downwash between the two vortices. [ 3 ] [ 2 ] : 8.1.1 [ 4 ]
Planview of a wing showing the horseshoe vortex system. The wingtip flow leaving the wing creates a tip vortex. As the main vortex sheet passes downstream from the trailing edge, it rolls up at its outer edges, merging with the tip vortices. The combination of the wingtip vortices and the vortex sheets feeding them is called the vortex wake.
The strength of a vortex line is constant along its length. Helmholtz's second theorem A vortex line cannot end in a fluid; it must extend to the boundaries of the fluid or form a closed path. Helmholtz's third theorem A fluid element that is initially irrotational remains irrotational. Helmholtz's theorems apply to inviscid flows.
The starting vortex is significant to an understanding of the Kutta condition and its role in the circulation around any airfoil generating lift. The starting vortex has certain similarities with the "starting plume" which forms at the leading edge of a slug of fluid, when one fluid is injected into another at rest. See plume (hydrodynamics).