Fluidic actuators for separation control at the engine/wing junction

2017 ◽  
Vol 89 (5) ◽  
pp. 709-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Schloesser ◽  
Michael Meyer ◽  
Martin Schueller ◽  
Perez Weigel ◽  
Matthias Bauer

Purpose The area behind the engine/wing junction of conventional civil aircraft configurations with underwing-mounted turbofans is susceptible to local flow separation at high angles of attack, which potentially impacts maximum lift performance of the aircraft. This paper aims to present the design, testing and optimization of two distinct systems of fluidic actuation dedicated to reduce separation at the engine/wing junction. Design/methodology/approach Active flow control applied at the unprotected leading edge inboard of the engine pylon has shown considerable potential to alleviate or even eliminate local flow separation, and consequently regain maximum lift performance. Two actuator systems, pulsed jet actuators with and without net mass flux, are tested and optimized with respect to an upcoming large-scale wind tunnel test to assess the effect of active flow control on the flow behavior. The requirements and parameters of the flow control hardware are set by numerical simulations of project partners. Findings The results of ground test show that full modulation of the jets of the non-zero mass flux actuator is achieved. In addition, it could be shown that the required parameters can be satisfied at design mass flow, and that pressure levels are within bounds. Furthermore, a new generation of zero-net mass flux actuators with improved performance is presented and described. This flow control system includes the actuator devices, their integration, as well as the drive and control electronics system that is used to drive groups of actuators. Originality/value The originality is given by the application of the two flow control systems in a scheduled large-scale wind tunnel test.

Author(s):  
Glenn Saunders ◽  
Edward Whalen ◽  
Helen Mooney ◽  
Sarah Zaremski

The design, fabrication and installation of an approximately 1/6 scale model of an aircraft vertical stabilizer for research in Active Flow Control (AFC) is discussed. Highlighted are the unique design requirements of wind tunnel models, the specialized fabrication techniques employed to create them and the required close collaboration between industry, government and three academic institutions. The design of the model involves often competing constraints imposed by structural, instrumentation, aerodynamic, manufacturability and research-agenda considerations as well as cost and schedule. Instrumentation requires hundreds of pressure ports and six-axis force/torque sensing. Aerodynamic considerations necessitate high manufacturing precision, highly-skilled fabrication techniques and careful observance of model geometry throughout the design and fabrication processes. A scale model of a vertical stabilizer for AFC research was successfully designed, fabricated and deployed. The collaboratively designed model satisfies the structural, aerodynamic and research design constraints, and furthers the state of the art in Active Flow Control research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 1169-1186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoann Eulalie ◽  
Elisabeth Fournier ◽  
Philippe Gilotte ◽  
David Holst ◽  
Shaun Johnson ◽  
...  

Purpose This paper aims to present an experimental investigation of an active flow control solution mounted at rear of a sport utility vehicle (SUV) with the objective of drag reduction, thanks to a selection of flow control parameters leading to a pressure increase on the tailgate. Design/methodology/approach A flow control design of experiments was conducted with a pulsed jet system mounted on the top and sides of the rear window of the vehicle. The wall pressure, instantaneous velocity and drag were measured with this prototype in a wind tunnel. A dynamic modal decomposition (DMD) analysis of the pressure enables to describe the pressure fluctuations. Fluid dynamic computations show relation between pressure and velocity fields. Findings Measurements with this prototype in the wind tunnel revealed small improvements in drag for the best flow control configurations. This small benefit is because of the core of the upper span wise vortex further away from the rear window than the lower span wise vortex. These small improvements in drag were confirmed with pressure measurements on the rear window and tailgate. The DMD analysis of the surface pressure showed a low frequency pendulum oscillation on the lower area of the tailgate, linked with low velocity frequencies in the shear layers near the tailgate. Originality/value Experimental and numerical results show interest to increase pressure at bottom of the rear end of this SUV prototype. The dynamic description of the wall pressure shows importance of flow control solutions reducing pressure fluctuations at low frequencies in the lower area of the tailgate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 346-352
Author(s):  
Petr Vrchota ◽  
Ales Prachar ◽  
Shia-Hui Peng ◽  
Magnus Tormalm ◽  
Peter Eliasson

Purpose In the European project AFLoNext, active flow control (AFC) measures were adopted in the wing tip extension leading edge to suppress flow separation. It is expected that the designed wing tip extension may improve aerodynamic efficiency by about 2 per cent in terms of fuel consumption and emissions. As the leading edge of the wing tip is not protected with high-lift device, flow separation occurs earlier than over the inboard wing in the take-off/landing configuration. The aim of this study is the adoption of AFC to delay wing tip stall and to improve lift-to-drag ratio. Design/methodology/approach Several actuator locations and AFC strategies were tested with computational fluid dynamics. The first approach was “standard” one with physical modeling of the actuators, and the second one was focused on the volume forcing method. The actuators location and the forcing plane close to separation line of the reference configuration were chose to enhance the flow with steady and pulsed jet blowing. Dependence of the lift-to-drag benefit with respect to injected mass flow is investigated. Findings The mechanism of flow separation onset is identified as the interaction of slat-end and wing tip vortices. These vortices moving toward each other with increasing angle of attack (AoA) interact and cause the flow separation. AFC is applied to control the slat-end vortex and the inboard movement of the wing tip vortex to suppress their interaction. The separation onset has been postponed by about 2° of AoA; the value of ift-to-drag (L/D) was improved up to 22 per cent for the most beneficial cases. Practical implications The AFC using the steady or pulsed blowing (PB) was proved to be an effective tool for delaying the flow separation. Although better values of L/D have been reached using steady blowing, it is also shown that PB case with a duty cycle of 0.5 needs only one half of the mass flow. Originality/value Two approaches of different levels of complexity are studied and compared. The first is based on physical modeling of actuator cavities, while the second relies on volume forcing method which does not require detailed actuator modeling. Both approaches give consistent results.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kewei Xu ◽  
Gecheng Zha

Abstract This paper applies Co-flow Jet (CFJ) active flow control airfoil to a NREL horizontal axis wind turbine for power output improvement. CFJ is a zero-net-mass-flux active flow control method that dramatically increases airfoil lift coefficient and suppresses flow separation at a low energy expenditure. The 3D Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with one-equation Spalart-Allmaras (SA) turbulence model are solved to simulate the 3D flows of the wind turbines. The baseline wind turbine is the NREL 10.06m diameter phase VI wind turbine and is modified to a CFJ blade by implementing CFJ along the span. The baseline wind turbine performance is validated with the experiment at three wind speeds, 7m/s, 15m/s, and 25m/s. The predicted blade surface pressure distributions and power output agree well with the experimental measurements. The study indicates that the CFJ can enhance the power output at the condition where angle of attack is increased to the level that conventional wind turbine is stalled. At the speed of 7m/s that the NREL turbine is designed to achieve the optimum efficiency at the pitch angle of 3°, the CFJ turbine does not increase the power output. When the pitch angle is reduced by 13° to −10°, the baseline wind turbine is stalled and generates negative power output at 7m/s. But the CFJ wind turbine increases the power output by 12.3% assuming CFJ fan efficiency of 80% at the same wind speed. This is an effective method to extract more power from the wind at all speeds. It is particularly useful at low speeds to decrease cut-in speed and increase power output without exceeding the structure limit. At the freestream velocity of 15m/s and the CFJ momentum coefficient Cμ of 0.23, the net power output is increased by 207.7% assuming the CFJ fan efficiency of 80%, compared to the baseline wind turbine due to the removal of flow separation. The CFJ wind turbine appears to open a door to a new area of wind turbine efficiency improvement and adaptive control for optimal loading.


Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (13) ◽  
pp. 794
Author(s):  
Cécile Ghouila-Houri ◽  
Célestin Ott ◽  
Romain Viard ◽  
Quentin Gallas ◽  
Eric Garnier ◽  
...  

This paper reports a calorimetric micro-sensor designed for aerodynamic applications. Measuring both the amplitude and the sign of the wall shear stress at small length-scale and high frequencies, the micro-sensor is particularly suited for flow separation detection and flow control. The micro-sensor was calibrated in static and dynamic in a turbulent boundary layer wind tunnel. Several micro-sensors were embedded in various configurations for measuring the shear stress and detecting flow separation. Specially, one was embedded inside an actuator slot for in situ measurements and twelve, associated with miniaturized electronics, were implemented on a flap model for active flow control experiments.


Author(s):  
Marcel Staats ◽  
Wolfgang Nitsche

We present results of experiments on a periodically unsteady compressor stator flow of the type which would be expected in consequence of pulsed combustion. A Reynolds number of Re = 600000 was used for the investigations. The experiments were conducted on the two-dimensional low-speed compressor testing facility in Berlin. A choking device downstream the trailing edges induced a periodic non-steady outflow condition to each stator vane which simulated the impact of a pressure gaining combuster downstream from the last stator. The Strouhal number of the periodic disturbance was Sr = 0.03 w.r.t. the stator chord length. Due to the periodic non-steady outflow condition, the flow-field suffers from periodic flow separation phenomena, which were managed by means of active flow control. In our case, active control of the corner separation was applied using fluidic actuators based on the principle of fluidic amplification. The flow separation on the centre region of the stator blade was suppressed by means of a fluidic blade actuator leading to an overall time-averaged loss reduction of 11.5%, increasing the static pressure recovery by 6.8% while operating in the non-steady regime. Pressure measurements on the stator blade and the wake as well as PIV data proved the beneficial effect of the active flow control application to the flow field and the improvement of the compressor characteristics. The actuation efficiency was evaluated by two figures of merit introduced in this contribution.


Author(s):  
Finn Lückoff ◽  
Moritz Sieber ◽  
Christian Oliver Paschereit ◽  
Kilian Oberleithner

Abstract The reduction of polluting NOx emission remains a driving factor in the design process of swirl-stabilized combustion systems, to meet strict legislative restrictions. In reacting swirl flows, hydrodynamic coherent structures, such as periodic large-scale vortices in the shear layer, induce zones with increased heat release rate fluctuations in connection with temperature peaks, which lead to an increase of NOx emissions. Such large-scale vortices can be induced by the helical coherent structure known as precessing vortex core (PVC), which influences the flow and flame dynamics of reacting swirl flows under certain operating conditions. We developed an active flow control system, which allows for a targeted actuation of the PVC, to investigate its impact on important combustion properties. In this study, the direct active flow control is used to actuate a PVC of arbitrary frequency and amplitude, which facilitates a systematic study of the impact of the PVC on NOx emissions. In the course of the present work, a perfectly premixed flame, which slightly damps the PVC, is studied in detail. Since the PVC is slightly damped, it can be precisely excited by means of open-loop flow control. In connection with time-resolved OH*-chemiluminescence and stereoscopic PIV measurements, the flame and flow response to PVC actuation as well as the impact of the actuated PVC on flow and flame dynamics are characterized. It turns out that the PVC rolls up the inner shear layer, which results in an interaction of PVC-induced vortices and flame. This interaction considerably influences the measured level of NOx emissions, which grow with increasing PVC amplitude in a perfectly premixed flame. Nearly the same increase is to be seen for a partially premixed flame. This in contrast to previous studies, where the PVC is assumed to reduce the NOx emissions due to vortex-enhanced mixing.


Author(s):  
Subhadeep Gan ◽  
Urmila Ghia ◽  
Karman Ghia

Most practical flows in engineering applications are turbulent, and exhibit separation. Losses due to separation are undesirable because they generally have adverse effects on performance and efficiency. Therefore, control of turbulent separated flows has been a topic of significant interest as it can reduce separation losses. It is of utmost importance to understand the complex flow dynamics that leads to flow separation and come up with methods of flow control. In the past, passive flow-control was mostly implemented that does not require any additional energy source to reduce separation losses but it leads to increasing viscous losses at higher Reynolds number. More recent work has been focused primarily on active flow-control techniques that can be turned on and off depending on the requirement of flow-control. The present work is focused on implementing flow control using steady suction in the region of flow separation. The present work is Case 3 of the 2004 CFD Validation on Synthetic Jets and Turbulent Separation Control Workshop, http://cfdval2004.larc.nasa.gov/case3.html, conducted by NASA for the flow over a wall-mounted hump. The flow over a hump is an example of a turbulent separated flow. This flow is characterized by a simple geometry, but, nevertheless, is rich in many complex flow phenomena such as shear layer instability, separation, reattachment, and vortex interactions. The baseline case has been successfully simulated by Gan et al., 2007. The flow is simulated at a Reynolds number of 371,600, based on the hump chord length, C, and Mach number of 0.04. The flow control is being achieved via a slot at approximately 65% C by using steady suction. Solutions are presented for the three-dimensional RANS SST, steady and unsteady, turbulence model and DES and LES turbulence modeling approaches. Multiple turbulence modeling approaches help to ascertain what techniques are most appropriate for capturing the physics of this complex separated flow. Second-order accurate time derivatives are used for all implicit unsteady simulation cases. Mean-velocity contours and turbulent kinetic energy contours are examined at different streamwise locations. Detailed comparisons are made of mean and turbulence statistics such as the pressure coefficient, skinfriction coefficient, and Reynolds stress profiles, with experimental results. The location of the reattachment behind the hump is compared with experimental results. The successful control of this turbulent separated flow causes a reduction in the reattachment length, compared with the uncontrolled case. The effects of steady suction on flow separation and reattachment are discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (08) ◽  
pp. 55-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Pechlivanoglou ◽  
C.N. Nayeri ◽  
C.O. Paschereit

This article discusses the performance optimization of wind turbine rotors with active flow control. An extensive multi-parameter investigation with a thorough matrix-grading system was performed to identify the most suitable solution for industrial quality, short/mid-term implementation on actual utility scale wind turbines. A very wide selection of aerodynamic flow control solutions was analyzed based on extensive multi-disciplinary literature review and through aerodynamic and aeroelastic simulations. It is suggested that the trailing edge devices have the most favorable performance in the field of system integration and mechanical design performance. Compliant structures like the flexible flap keep the number of moving parts to a minimum while maintaining high performance and manufacturing simplicity. The use of flexible and elastic materials based on polymers or rubber material improves the lightning strike resistance of these solutions and allows for low-cost large-scale production. The actuator principle, sensitivity, and reliability are decisive parameters, and pneumatic actuators seem to strike a good balance between performance, cost, and reliability.


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