There have been a number of studies on the flow field around a pitching airfoil and a heaving airfoil. Especially, the relationship between the wake structure and the characteristics of dynamic thrust has been clarified. Recently, the flow field around an elastic body has been attracted significant attention and the flow field is treated as a coupled problem between the fluid and structure. The flow field around an elastic body has been investigated primarily by numerical means, and there have been experimental studies. However, the details of the impact of elastic deformation effects on the growth process of vortices generated in the vicinity of the wall have not been clarified. In this study, we investigate the growth process of vortices generated in the vicinity of the wall of elastic moving airfoils experimentally. The elastic NACA0010 generates vortices in a large region of a wall and rolls up vortices, with the vortices growing gradually toward the trailing edge as a result of elastic deformation. The elastic NACA0010 has a characteristic whereby vortices having a rotational component that is stronger than the shear-strain component due to the vorticities in the vicinity of a wall of the elastic NACA0010 change not only spatial change of x- and y-components.

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