Abstract
Flat plates such as roofing tiles, slates and sheet metals are prevailing missiles observed in typhoons. A wind tunnel experiment has been carried out to obtain the aerodynamic coefficients of square, rectangular and diamond flat plates, which are free to rotate about an axis perpendicular to stream, over the range from rest to steady state autorotation. The results are compared with those obtained by other investigators. Quasi-steady equations of motion of a particle model and a two-dimensional flat plate model are presented. The latter equations are modified using the aerodynamic coefficients of rotating plates obtained by the wind tunnel experiment. The influence of two non-dimensional parameters, the ratio of wind force to gravity force and Froude number, on the missile trajectories is shown by several results of numerical integrations.
