Vortex moment map for unsteady incompressible viscous flows

In this paper, a vortex moment map (VMM) method is proposed to predict the pitching moment on a body from the vorticity field. VMM is designed to identify the moment contribution of each given vortex in the flow field. Implementing this VMM approach in starting flows of a NACA0012 airfoil, it is found that, due to the rolling up of leading-edge vortices (LEVs) and trailing-edge vortices (TEVs), the unsteady nose-down moment about the quarter chord is higher than the steady-state value. The time variation of the unsteady moment is closely related to the LEVs and TEVs near the body and the VMM gives an intuitive understanding of how each part of the vorticity field contributes to the pitching moment on the body.