Aspects of second- and third-order panel methods demonstrated for the two-dimensional flat plate problem

Characteristics of three second-order and two third-order panel method formulations for the incompressible flow about a flat plate at incidence are investigated. The integral equation resulting from imposing the stream surface condition at the flat plate is written in the vorticity formulation. Higher-order accuracy is achieved by employing mode functions which extract the singular behavior of the doublet distribution near the leading and trailing edge to sufficient degree. It is demonstrated that from a viewpoint of computational efficiency the third-order methods are superior over the second-order methods.