On the structure of the turbulent/non-turbulent interface in a fully developed spatially evolving axisymmetric wake

In this work,we numerically study the structure of the turbulent/nonturbulent(T/NT)interface in a fully developed spatially evolving axisymmetric wake by means of direct numerical simulations.There is a continuous and contorted pure shear layer(PSL)adjacent to the outer edge of the T/NT interface.The local thickness of the PSLδ_(PSL)exhibits a wide range of scales(from the Kolmogorov scale to the Taylor microscale)and the conditional mean thickness<δ_(PSL)>I/η_(c)≈6 withη_(c)being the centerline Kolmogorov scale is the same as the viscous superlayer.In the viscous superlayer,the pure shear motions without rotation are overwhelmingly dominant.It is also demonstrated that the physics of the turbulent sublayer is closely related to the PSL with a large thickness.Another significant finding is that the time averaged area of the rotational regionA R,and the pure shear region<A_(S)>at different streamwise locations scale with the square of the wake-width b_(U)^(2).This study opens an avenue for a better understanding of the structures of the T/NT interface.

Numerical simulation of Gurney flap on SFYT15thick airfoil

A two-dimensional steady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes （RANS） equation was solved to investigate the effects of a Gurney flap on SFYT15 thick airfoil aerodynamic performance. This airfoil was designed for flight vehicle operating at 20 km altitude with freestream velocity of 25 m/s, The chord length （C） is 5 m and the Reynolds number based on chord length is Re = 7.76 × 10^5. Gurney flaps with the heights ranging from 0.25%C to 3%C were investigated. The shear stress transport （SST） k-ω turbulence model was used to simulate the flow structure around the airfoil. It is showed that Gurney flap can enhance not only the prestall lift but also lift-to-drag ratio in a certain range of angles of attack. Specially, at cruise angle of attack （ω = 3°）, Gurney flap with 0.5%C height can increase lift-to-drag ratio by 2.7%, and lift coefficient by 12.9%, respectively. Furthermore, the surface pressure distribution, streamlines and trailing-edge flow structure around the airfoil are illustrated, which are helpful to understand the mechanisms of Gurney flap on airfoil aerodynamic performance. Moreover, it is found that the increase of airfoil drag with Gurney flap can be attributed to the increase of pressure drag between the windward and the leeward sides of Gurney flat itself.

Numerical investigation of flow over a two-dimensional square cylinder with a synthetic jet generated by a bi-frequency signal

The flow around a square cylinder with a synthetic jet positioned at the rear surface is numerically investigated with the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes(URANS)method.Instead of the typical sinusoidal wave,a bi-frequency signal is adopted to generate the synthetic jet.The bi-frequency signal consists of a basic sinusoidal wave and a high-frequency wave.Cases with various amplitudes of the high-frequency component are simulated.It is found that synthetic jets actuated by bi-frequency signals can realize better drag reduction with lower energy consumption when appropriate parameter sets are applied.A new quantity,i.e.,the actuation efficiency Ae,is used to evaluate the controlling efficiency.The actuation efficiency Ae reaches its maximum of 0.2668 when the amplitude of the superposed high-frequency signal is 7.5%of the basic signal.The vortex structures and frequency characteristics are subsequently analyzed to investigate the mechanism of the optimization of the bi-frequency signal.When the synthetic jet is actuated by a single-frequency signal with a characteristic velocity of 0.112 m/s,the wake is asymmetrical.The alternative deflection of vortex pairs and the peak at half of the excitation frequency in the power spectral density(PSD)function are detected.In the bi-frequency cases with the same characteristic velocity,the wake gradually turns to be symmetrical with the increase in the amplitude of the high-frequency component.Meanwhile,the deflection of the vortex pairs and the peak at half of the excitation frequency gradually disappear as well.

Effects of 3-D deformation of elastic wings on aerodynamic performance of an aircraft model

The wind tunnel experiment is conducted on a simplified aircraft model with rigid and two kinds of elastic wings to investigate the effect of wing 3-D deformation on the aircraft aerodynamic performance.The results show that two elastic wings exhibit different aerodynamic performances,which are classified as the lift-enhancement wing and the drag-reduction wing.For the liftenhancement wing,the stall angle is delayed from 8°to 15°with a corresponding lift increment of 64.3%compared with the rigid wing.It is shown that the lift enhancement of the aircraft model is accompanied by the torsional vibration mode of the wing,which results in the significant improvement of wing circulation.For the drag-reduction wing,the aerodynamic performance is dominated by the time-averaged deformation,which couples the bending and twisting.The wing twist reduces the effective angle of attack,as well as the frontal area,and contributes to the decreased wake deficit.Meantime,the bent wings function as barriers to the cross flow resulting in a reduction of lift-induced drag.As a result,the drag coefficient is reduced from 0.115 to 0.098 with a reduction of 14.8%at angle of attack of 12°.

Plasma Virtual Actuators for Flow Control

Dielectric-barrier-discharge (DBD) plasma actuators are all-electric devices with no moving parts. They are made of a simple construction, consisting only of a pair of electrodes sandwiching a dielectric sheet. When AC voltage is applied, air surrounding the upper electrode is ionized, which is attracted towards the charged dielectric surface to form a wall jet. Control of flow over land and air vehicles as well as rotational machinery can be carried out using this jet flow on demand. Here we review recent developments in plasma virtual actuators for flow control that can replace conventional actuators for better aerodynamic performance.

Slat cove dynamics of multi-element airfoil at low Reynolds number

The flow around the slat cove of a two-dimensional 30P30N multi-element airfoil is investigated with time-resolved particle image velocimetry(TR-PIV)at low Reynolds number(Rec=2.41×10^(4)and 4.61×10^(4)).The effects of angle of attack(α=8°,12°,and 16°)on the mean flow characteristics and vortex dynamics are discussed.The size of the recirculation within the slat cove and the intensity of the shed vortices originating from the slat cusp shear layer are found to generally decrease as the angle of attack increases.The joint time-frequency analyses show that disturbances of different frequencies exist in the slat cusp shear layer and they trigger the different vortex shedding patterns of the slat cusp shear layer.The self-sustained oscillation within the slat cove,normally observed at high Reynolds number(Re_(c)~10^(6)),is proved to be responsible for the disturbances of different frequencies and the related vortex dynamics in the current study.

Experimental investigation on control of vortex shedding mode of a circular cylinder using synthetic jets placed at stagnation points

Control of flow around a circular cylinder by synthetic jets has been experimentally investigated in a water tunnel with particle image velocimetry(PIV) technique.The synthetic jets are positioned at both the front and rear stagnation points.With power spectrum analysis,proper orthogonal decomposition(POD) method and other techniques for data processing,particular attention is paid to the control of vortical structures around the circular cylinder,in which the excitation frequency f e is one to three times of the natural frequency f0 and the cylinder Reynolds number and the excitation amplitude are fixed.The influenced-scope of the synthetic jet enlarges as the excitation frequency increases,and thus the synthetic jet dominates the global flow field gradually.For the natural case and the control case at fe/f0=1,the distributions of the first two POD modes and the power spectra for their POD coefficients all exhibit the characteristics of the natural shedding with antisymmetric mode.For fe/f0=2 and fe/f0=3,the variations in the third and fourth POD modes and the corresponding power spectra indicate that the wake vortex shedding mode changes and the dominant frequency becomes the excitation frequency.For fe/f0=2,the wake vortex sheds downstream with either the antisymmetric or the symmetric mode;for fe/f0=3,the synthetic jet vortex pair interacts with the near wake shear layers from both sides to induce a pair of the symmetric wake vortices,which is gradually converted into an antisymmetric mode when shedding downstream.

Fourier mode decomposition of PIV data.

The modal decomposition technique is one of the most effective methods for studying the flow dynamics in a complex flow. By rejuvenating the discrete Fourier transform(DFT), this paper proposes a Fourier mode decomposition(FMD) method for the time series of particle image velocimetry(PIV) data from the fluid field. An experimental case concerning the control of the flow around a circular cylinder by a synthetic jet positioned at the rear stagnation point is used to demonstrate the use of the FMD method. In the three different regimes where the natural shedding frequency and actuation frequency dominate respectively or simultaneously, it is found that the FMD method is capable of extracting the dynamic mode along with its amplitude and phase according to the selected characteristic frequency based on the global power spectrum. For the quasiperiodic flow phenomena presented in this particular case, the FMD method can reconstruct the original flow field using the zero-th mode and the selected mode corresponding to the characteristic frequency. Similarities and differences between the FMD method and the dynamical mode decomposition(DMD) and proper orthogonal decomposition(POD) methods are also discussed.

Recent development of vortex ring impinging onto the wall

It has been more than one hundred years for the study on vortex structure,which is a very important flow structure in the fluid mechanics.Recently,the interaction between vortex ring and solid wall has attracted more and more attentions,for not only it is a very common phenomenon in the engineering,but also it could benefit the understanding of the mechanism of interaction between the vortex and the boundary layer.The interaction between the vortex ring and the wall is reviewed in this paper,including the evolution of vortex ring,the mechanics of vortex ring azimuthal instabilities,the achievements of synthetic vortex ring impinging onto the solid wall,its potential application to heat transfer,and the influence of vortex ring compression.Besides,the latest results of vortex ring impinging onto porous wall are presented,and the future possible investigation direction on this issue is suggested.

Experimental and numerical investigation of threedimensional vortex structures of a pitching airfoil at a transitional Reynolds number

This research examines the vortex behaviors and aerodynamic forces in dynamic stall phenomena at a transitional Reynolds number(Re=90000)using experimental and numerical approaches.Periodic sinusoidal pitching motion at two different reduced frequencies is used to achieve the dynamic stall of a NACA 0012 airfoil.Several leading edge vortices form and detach in the dynamic stall stage.The flow then quickly transitions to a full separation zone in the stall stage when the angle of attack starts to decrease.There is discrepancy between the phaseaveraged and instantaneous flow field in that the small flow structures increased with angle of attack,which is a characteristic of the flow field at the transitional Reynolds number.The interaction between the streamwise vortices in the three-dimensional numerical results and the leading edge vortex are the main contribution to the turbulent flow.In addition,the leading edge vortex that supplies vortex lift is more stable at higher reduced frequency,which decreases the lift fluctuation in the dynamic stall stage.The leading edge vortex at higher reduced frequency is strong enough to stabilize the flow,even when the airfoil is in the down-stroke phase.

Effects of surface shapes on properties of turbulent/non-turbulent interface in turbulent boundary layers

The effects of directional riblets surfaces on the turbulent/non-turbulent(T/NT) interface in turbulent boundary layers are experimentally investigated using two-dimensional time-resolved particle image velocimetry(PIV). The velocity field of streamwise-wall-normal plane for the smooth surface, converging and diverging riblets surfaces are measured. The interface is detected using the criterion of local kinetic energy. The statistical properties of interface height and conditional averaged velocity for different surfaces are analyzed. It is shown that, the converging and diverging riblets surfaces have little effect on the fractal dimension of the T/NT interface, but they cause the intermittency profile deviate from error function and the probability distribution of interface height deviate from Gaussian function. To be specific, the distribution of interface height for the converging riblets surface shows a positive skewness while it shows a negative skewness for the diverging riblets surface.Moreover, the conditional averaged streamwise velocity and spanwise vorticity across the interface are analyzed, and it is found that their self-similarities are preserved for different surfaces when normalized with respective friction velocity. The correlation analysis reveals that near-wall streamwise velocity fluctuation and interface height show a negative correlation.

Influence of orifice-to-wall distance on synthetic jet vortex ring simpinging on a fixed wall

Two-dimensional particle image velocimetry (PIV) is used to investigate the influence of the orifice-to-wall distance on synthetic jet vortex rings impinging on a fixed wall. Both evolutions of vortical structures and statistical characteristics of flow fields at different orifice-to-wall distances are presented. It is found that different orifice-to-wall distances have different effects in terms of the vortex strength and impinging speed when the vortex rings are approaching the wall. The secondary vortex ring can be observed within the shear layer only when the dimensionless orifice-to-wall distance is close to or less than the dimensionless stroke length. Consequently, an appropriate orifice-to-wall distance plays a vital role in the sense of impingement effect. The statistical analysis of the flow field indicates that a wall jet forms after impingement, while both the decay rate of the maximum radial velocity and the spreading rate of the half-width decrease with the increasing orifice-to-wall distance. The non-dimensional wall jet velocity profiles at different orifice-to-wall distances all exhibit self-similar behaviors, which is consistent with the theoretical solution of the laminar wall jet.

Influence of membrane wing active deformation on the aerodynamic performance of an aircraft model

The aerodynamic performance of a simplified aircraft model with a pair of actively deformed membrane wings is investigated experimentally in this work. The active deformation is achieved with Macro fiber composite(MFC) actuators, which are attached to the upper surface of the wings and occupied 13.7% of the wing surface area. Wind tunnel experiments are conducted to evaluate the influence of membrane active deformation on the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft. The results show that the membrane deforms and vibrates under the actuation which can effectively suppress the leading-edge separation and facilitate the reattachment. Therefore, compared with the rigid wing model, the lift coefficient of the actively deformed membrane wing model is enhanced remarkably from the angle of attack of 7° to 22°. The stall angle is delayed by 2°, and a maximum lift coefficient enhancement of 32.5% is reached, which shows a wide potential application in improving the aerodynamic performance of modern aircraft.

Regularities between kinematic and aerodynamic characteristics of flexible membrane wing

The kinematic characteristics of flexible membrane wing have vital influences on its aerodynamic characteristics. To deeply explore the regularities between them, time-resolved aerodynamic forces and deformations at different aeroelastic parameters and angles of attack(α) were measured synchronously by wind tunnel experiments. The membrane motion can be mainly divided into two states at α > 0° with various lift-enhancement regularities: Deformed-Steady State(DSS)at pre-stall, and Dynamic Balance State(DBS) at around stall and post-stall. Besides, the mean camber, maximum vibration amplitude, and lift coefficient almost reach their maxima simultaneously within the DBS region. By introducing momentum coefficient Cμ of membrane vibration, positive correlation among amplitude, momentum and lift is successfully established, and the liftenhancement mechanism of membrane vibration is revealed. Moreover, it is newly and surprisingly found that at different vibration modes, the maximum vibration amplitude and root mean square of vibration velocity present positive and linear correlation with different slopes, and their chordwise locations are basically consistent. Therefore, novel ideas for active control of flexible wing are proposed: by controlling the vibration amplitude, frequency, and mode, while selecting the specific chordwise locations for intensive excitation, Cμ can be efficiently increased. Ultimately, the aerodynamic performance will be improved.

圆和非圆湍流合成射流结构演化和质量输运的拉格朗日方法分析

旋涡卷吸特性对合成射流的流动控制应用具有重要意义.为了研究湍流合成射流涡环的结构演化和瞬态卷吸特性,采用时间解析层析粒子图像测速技术,测量了相同参数下,圆形和长宽比为3的矩形合成射流的三维流场.利用拉格朗日拟序结构方法,刻画了涡环的三维拓扑变形和质量输运过程,并量化了连续涡环的卷吸特性.特别是对矩形涡环,由于涡环的对流速度沿周向分布不均匀,导致传统的移动参考系方法无法有效计算卷吸.针对该问题,采用基于有限时间李雅普诺夫指数“脊线”辨识旋涡边界的方法,估计涡泡体积,从而计算涡环的卷吸和动能转换效率.结果表明,矩形涡环能够卷吸更多的周围流质,产生比圆形涡环更大的涡旋强度;此外,矩形涡环从孔口喷出的流质中获得了更多动能,以维持涡环的轴系转换,这些特征有利于增强射流掺混.上述工作通过发展旋涡动力学的数学描述,为量化流动控制中的旋涡卷吸特性提供了重要参考.

High-accuracy 3-D deformation measurement method with an improved structured-light principle

In this paper,a high-accuracy 3-D deformation measurement(HADM)method with structured light is proposed and applied to wing deformation measurement in wind tunnel experiments.The present method employs an arbitrarily arranged fringe projector and a perpendicularly placed camera.The exact phase-height mapping using the phase differences of the projected sinusoidal fringe patterns,as well as the spatial distribution of the fringe,is accurately derived.It not only presents high feasibility but also reduces systemic uncertainties arising from deviations between the ideal model and the real-world conditions.Meanwhile,a dynamic boundary process algorithm is proposed to reduce the measurement uncertainty caused by fringe fracture near the object boundary.It is calibrated that a high accuracy with the average measurement uncertainty of 0.0237 mm is achieved,which is less than 0.01%of the side length of 25 cm of the field of view.In the wind tunnel experiments,the 3-D deformations of the elastic wing,particularly the key geometric parameters such as wing tip position,angle of attack,and dihedral angle,are well reconstructed to provide an in-depth explanation for the aerodynamic characteristics.

A single camera volumetric particle image velocimetry and its application

Volumetric particle image velocimetry(VPIV) refers to a PIV-based technique which can obtain full velocity components in a three-dimensional measurement volume.A new VPIV method with a single lens was developed.A three-vision prism was used to make viewing from different angles using one camera.The technique was tested and successfully applied to a three-dimensional three-component(3D3C) measurement of a zero-net-mass-flux jet flow.The accuracy of the measurement was investigated,specifically in steps of calibration,self-calibration and particle triangulation.Time sequence of a vortex ring development was presented.It was shown that the measurement has high accuracy with validation rate of velocity vector reaching about 95%.The flow with vortex ring passing the measurement volume was studied using both swirl strength and vorticity magnitude criteria.Through comparison,the swirl criterion was found to be superior to the criterion of vorticity in differentiating the rotation motion and the free shear.

Dual-basis reconstruction techniques for tomographic PIV

As an inverse problem, particle reconstruction in tomographic particle image velocimetry attempts to solve a large-scale underdetermined linear system using an optimization technique. The most popular approach, the multiplicative algebraic reconstruction technique(MART), uses entropy as an objective function in the optimization. All available MART-based methods are focused on improving the efficiency and accuracy of particle reconstruction. However, those methods do not perform very well on dealing with ghost particles in highly seeded measurements. In this report, a new technique called dual-basis pursuit(DBP), which is based on the basis pursuit technique, is proposed for tomographic particle reconstruction. A template basis is introduced as a priori knowledge of a particle intensity distribution combined with a correcting basis to enable a full span of the solution space of the underdetermined linear system. A numerical assessment test with 2D synthetic images indicated that the DBP technique is superior to MART method, can completely recover a particle field when the number of particles per pixel(ppp) is less than 0.15, and can maintain a quality factor Q of above 0.8 for ppp up to 0.30. Unfortunately, the DBP method is difficult to utilize in 3D applications due to the cost of its excessive memory usage. Therefore, a dual-basis MART was designed that performed better than the traditional MART and can potentially be utilized for 3D applications.