Analysis and Comparison of Transonic Buffet Phenomenon over Several Three-Dimensional Wings

The transonic buffet is a complex aerodynamic instability that appears on wings and airfoils at a high subsonic Mach number and/or angle of attack. It consists of a shock oscillation that induces pressure and notably lift fluctuations, thus limiting the flight envelope of civil aircraft. The aim of the present Paper is to improve the understanding of the flow physics of the three-dimensional transonic buffet over swept wings through the analysis and comparison of four different experimental databases. In particular, the objective is to identify characteristic values of the phenomenon such as Strouhal numbers, convection velocities, buffet onset, etc. It is shown that some dimensionless numbers are kept constant among the different databases and consequently can be considered as characteristics, whereas others change. The key factors in the understanding of the three-dimensional transonic buffet phenomenon lie in explaining common features but also the variability of transonic buffet characteristics in different configurations. In particular, it is shown that three-dimensional buffet is characterized by a Strouhal number in the range 0.2-0.3 and a spanwise convection velocity of (0.245 +/- 0.015)U-infinity, where U-infinity denotes the freestream velocity. These characteristic ranges of frequencies are larger than those of the two-dimensional buffet phenomenon, which suggests different physical mechanisms.