Abstract: Transonic buffer is a periodically self-sustained motion of the shock induced by the shock boundary-layer interaction. Flight accidents and structural fatigue may be caused by the related ongoing oscillating loads in transonic flight. First, an investigation of the status of the current advances in the researches on transonic buffet is presented in this paper, and some main methods based on wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulations in recent years are reviewed in detail as well. Besides, the attentions are focus on the transonic buffet mechanism and the new progress on the effects of the prescribed structural motion on the characteristic of buffet loads. Some passive and active control me-thods are also involved briefly. At last, the important prospects in future transonic buffet investigations, which are the thorough study on the transonic buffet mechanism, the effects of airfoil elastic characteristics on transonic buffet cha-racteristics and the design of control law based on closed-loop active control are proposed.

Key words: shock wave, transonic flow, separated flow, buffet, aeroelasiticity, flow control