Free-stream turbulence and the development of cross-flow disturbances

2013 ◽  
Vol 735 ◽  
pp. 347-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Downs ◽  
Edward B. White

AbstractThe cross-flow instability that arises in swept-wing boundary layers has resisted attempts to describe the path from disturbance initiation to transition. Following concerted research efforts, surface roughness and free-stream turbulence have been identified as the leading providers of initial disturbances for cross-flow instability growth. Although a significant body of work examines the role of free-stream turbulence in the cross-flow problem, the data more relevant to the flight environment (turbulence intensities less than 0.07 %) are sparse. A series of recent experiments indicates that variations within this range may affect the initiation or growth of cross-flow instability amplitudes, hindering comparison among results obtained in different disturbance environments. To address this problem, a series of wind tunnel experiments is performed in which the free-stream turbulence intensity is varied between 0.02 % and 0.2 % of free-stream velocity,${U}_{\infty } $. Measurements of the stationary and travelling mode amplitudes are made in the boundary layer of a 1.83 m chord,$45{{}^\circ} $swept-wing model. These results are compared to those of similar experiments at higher turbulence levels to broaden the current knowledge of this portion of the cross-flow problem. It is observed that both free-stream turbulence and surface roughness contribute to the initiation of unsteady disturbances, and that free-stream turbulence affects the development of both stationary and unsteady cross-flow disturbances. For the range tested, enhanced free-stream turbulence advances the transition location except when a subcritically spaced roughness array is employed.

1974 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 641-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Horlock ◽  
A. K. Lewkowicz ◽  
J. Wordsworth

Two attempts were made to develop a three-dimensional laminar boundary layer in the flow over a flat plate in a curved duct, establishing a negligible streamwise pressure gradient and, at the same time, an appreciable crosswise pressure gradient.A first series of measurements was undertaken keeping the free-stream velocity at about 30 ft/s; the boundary layer was expected to be laminar, but appears to have been transitional. As was to be expected, the cross-flow in the boundary layer decreased gradually as the flow became progressively more turbulent.In a second experiment, at a lower free-stream velocity of approximately 10 ft/s, the boundary layer was laminar. Its streamwise profile resembled closely the Blasius form, but the cross-flow near the edge of the boundary layer appears to have exceeded that predicted theoretically. However, there was a substantial experimental scatter in the measurements of the yaw angle, which in laminar boundary layers is difficult to obtain accurately.


2019 ◽  
Vol 486 (6) ◽  
pp. 668-672
Author(s):  
S. A. Baranov ◽  
A. Ph. Kiselev ◽  
I. A. Moralev ◽  
D. S. Sboev ◽  
S. N. Tolkachev ◽  
...  

The results of an experimental study of the effect of dielectric barrier discharge (DBR) actuator on laminar-turbulent transition in a three-dimensional boundary layer under influence of elevated free-stream turbulence are presented. The travelling cross-flow instability modes are dominated in transition in a base configuration. Their characteristics do not depend on a spanwise position. The DBD-actuator that generated stationary cross-flow vortices with the predefined spanwise wavelength when turned on was capable to reduce a turbulent spots production rate in comparison to the base regime.


2021 ◽  
Vol 931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca De Vincentiis ◽  
Dan S. Henningson ◽  
Ardeshir Hanifi

The instability of an incompressible boundary-layer flow over an infinite swept wing in the presence of disc-type roughness elements and free-stream turbulence (FST) has been investigated by means of direct numerical simulations. Our study corresponds to the experiments by Örlü et al. (Tech. Rep., KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2021, http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-291874). Here, different dimensions of the roughness elements and levels of FST have been considered. The aim of the present work is to investigate the experimentally observed sensitivity of the transition to the FST intensity. In the absence of FST, flow behind the roughness elements with a height above a certain value immediately undergoes transition to turbulence. Impulse–response analyses of the steady flow have been performed to identify the mechanism behind the observed flow instability. For subcritical roughness, the generated wave packet experiences a weak transient growth behind the roughness and then its amplitude decays as it is advected out of the computational domain. In the supercritical case, in which the flow transitions to turbulence, flow as expected exhibits an absolute instability. The presence of FST is found to have a significant impact on the transition behind the roughness, in particular in the case of a subcritical roughness height. For a height corresponding to a roughness Reynolds number $Re_{hh}=461$ , in the absence of FST the flow reaches a steady laminar state, while a very low FST intensity of $Tu =0.03\,\%$ causes the appearance of turbulence spots in the wake of the roughness. These randomly generated spots are advected out of the computational domain. For a higher FST level of $Tu=0.3\,\%$ , a turbulent wake is clearly visible behind the element, similar to that for the globally unstable case. The presented results confirm the experimental observations and explain the mechanisms behind the observed laminar–turbulent transition and its sensitivity to FST.


2013 ◽  
Vol 718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyed M. Hosseini ◽  
David Tempelmann ◽  
Ardeshir Hanifi ◽  
Dan S. Henningson

AbstractThe stabilization of a swept-wing boundary layer by distributed surface roughness elements is studied by performing direct numerical simulations. The configuration resembles experiments studied by Saric and coworkers at Arizona State University, who employed this control method in order to delay transition. An array of cylindrical roughness elements are placed near the leading edge to excite subcritical cross-flow modes. Subcritical refers to the modes that are not critical with respect to transition. Their amplification to nonlinear amplitudes modifies the base flow such that the most unstable cross-flow mode and secondary instabilities are damped, resulting in downstream shift of the transition location. The experiments by Saric and coworkers were performed at low levels of free stream turbulence, and the boundary layer was therefore dominated by stationary cross-flow disturbances. Here, we consider a more complex disturbance field, which comprises both steady and unsteady instabilities of similar amplitudes. It is demonstrated that the control is robust with respect to complex disturbance fields as transition is shifted from 45 to 65 % chord.


2021 ◽  
Vol 926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Thomas ◽  
Christopher Davies

An adjoint approach is developed to compute the receptivity of the rotating disc boundary layer to surface roughness. The adjoint linearised Navier–Stokes equations, in cylindrical coordinates, are derived and receptivity characteristics are computed for a broad range of azimuthal mode numbers using a fully equivalent velocity–vorticity formulation. For each set of flow conditions (i.e. azimuthal mode number), the adjoint method only requires that the linear and adjoint solutions be computed once. Thus, the adjoint approach offers significant computational and time advantages over alternative receptivity schemes (i.e. direct linearised Navier–Stokes) as they can be used to instantaneously compute the receptivity of boundary layer disturbances to many environmental mechanisms. Stationary cross-flow disturbances are established by randomly distributed surface roughness that is periodic in the azimuthal direction and modelled via a linearisation of the no-slip condition on the disc surface. Each roughness distribution is scaled on its respective root-mean-square. A Monte-Carlo type uncertainty quantification analysis is performed, whereby mean receptivity amplitudes are computed by averaging over many thousands of roughness realisations with variable length and wavelength filters. The amplitude of the cross-flow instability is significantly larger for roughness distributions near the conditions for neutral linear instability, while roughness elements radially outboard have a negligible effect on the receptivity process. Furthermore, receptivity increases sharply for roughness distributions that encompass wavelength scales equivalent to that associated with the cross-flow instability. Finally, mean receptivity characteristics are used to predict the radial range that stationary cross-flow vortices achieve amplitudes sufficient to invalidate the linear stability assumptions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 716 ◽  
pp. 487-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. I. Borodulin ◽  
A. V. Ivanov ◽  
Y. S. Kachanov ◽  
A. P. Roschektaev

AbstractThe present experimental study is devoted to examination of the vortex receptivity mechanism associated with excitation of unsteady cross-flow (CF) waves due to scattering of unsteady free-stream vortices on localized steady surface non-uniformities (roughness). The measurements are carried out in a low-turbulence wind tunnel by means of a hot-wire anemometer in a boundary layer developing over a $25\textdegree $ swept-wing model. The harmonic-in-time free-stream vortices were excited by a thin vibrating wire located upstream of the experimental-model leading edge and represented a kind of small-amplitude von Kármán vortex street with spanwise orientation of the generated instantaneous vorticity vectors. The controlled roughness elements (the so-called ‘phased roughness’) were placed on the model surface. This roughness had a special shape, which provided excitation of CF-waves having basically some predetermined (required) spanwise wavenumbers. The linearity of the stability and receptivity mechanisms under study was checked accurately by means of variation of both the free-stream-vortex amplitude and the surface roughness height. These experiments were directed to obtaining the amplitudes and phases of the vortex-roughness receptivity coefficients for a number of vortex disturbance frequencies. The vortex street position with respect to the model surface (the vortex offset parameter) was also varied. The receptivity characteristics obtained experimentally in Fourier space are independent of the particular roughness shape, and can be used for validation of receptivity theories.


2012 ◽  
Vol 700 ◽  
pp. 490-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tempelmann ◽  
Ardeshir Hanifi ◽  
Dan S. Henningson

AbstractAdjoint solutions of the linearized incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are presented for a cross-flow-dominated swept-wing boundary layer. For the first time these have been computed in the region upstream of the swept leading edge and may therefore be used to predict receptivity to any disturbances of the incoming free stream as well as to surface roughness. In this paper we present worst-case scenarios, i.e. those external disturbances yielding maximum receptivity amplitudes of a steady cross-flow disturbance. In the free stream, such an ‘optimal’ disturbance takes the form of a streak which, while being convected downstream, penetrates the boundary layer and smoothly turns into a growing cross-flow mode. The ‘worst-case’ surface roughness has a wavy shape and is distributed in the chordwise direction. It is shown that, under such optimal conditions, the boundary layer is more receptive to surface roughness than to incoming free stream disturbances.


2012 ◽  
Vol 711 ◽  
pp. 516-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tempelmann ◽  
Lars-Uve Schrader ◽  
Ardeshir Hanifi ◽  
Luca Brandt ◽  
Dan S. Henningson

AbstractThe receptivity to localized surface roughness of a swept-wing boundary layer is studied by direct numerical simulation (DNS) and computations using the parabolized stability equations (PSEs). The DNS is laid out to reproduce wind tunnel experiments performed by Saric and coworkers, where micron-sized cylinders were used to trigger steady crossflow modes. The amplitudes of the roughness-induced fundamental crossflow wave and its superharmonics obtained from nonlinear PSE solutions agree excellently with the DNS results. A receptivity model using the direct and adjoint PSEs is shown to provide reliable predictions of the receptivity to roughness cylinders of different heights and chordwise locations. Being robust and computationally efficient, the model is well suited as a predictive tool of receptivity in flows of practical interest. The crossflow mode amplitudes obtained based on both DNS and PSE methods are 40 % of those measured in the experiments. Additional comparisons between experimental and PSE data for various disturbance wavelengths reveal that the measured disturbance amplitudes are consistently larger than those predicted by the PSE-based receptivity model by a nearly constant factor. Supplementary DNS and PSE computations suggest that possible natural leading-edge roughness and free-stream turbulence in the experiments are unlikely to account for this discrepancy. It is more likely that experimental uncertainties in the streamwise location of the roughness array and cylinder height are responsible for the additional receptivity observed in the experiments.


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