Effect of the Extended Rigid Flapping Trailing Edge Fringe on an S833 Airfoil

A 2D numerical simulation was conducted to investigate the effect of an extended rigid trailing edge fringe with a flapping motion on the S833 airfoil and its wake flow field, as an analogy of an owl’s wing. This study aims to characterize the influence of the extended flapping fringe on the aerodynamic performance and the wake flow characteristics downstream of the airfoil. The length (Le) and flapping frequencies (fe) of the fringe are the key parameters that dominate the impact on the airfoil and the flow field, given that the oscillation angular amplitude is fixed at 5°. The simulation results demonstrated that the airfoil with an extended fringe of 10% of the chord at a flapping frequency of fe = 110 Hz showed a substantial effect on the pressure distribution on the airfoil and the flow characteristics downstream of the airfoil. An irregular vortex street was predicted downstream, thus causing attenuations of the vorticities, and shorter streamwise gaps between each pair of vortices. The extended flapping fringe at a lower frequency than the natural shedding vortex frequency can effectively break the large vortex structure up into smaller scales, thus leading to an accelerated attenuation of vorticities in the wake.

Optimal Control of SiC Crystal Growth in the RF-TSSG System Using Reinforcement Learning

We have developed a reinforcement learning (RL) model to control the melt flow in the radio frequency (RF) top-seeded solution growth (TSSG) process for growing more uniform SiC crystals with a higher growth rate. In the study, the electromagnetic field (EM) strength is controlled by the RL model to weaken the influence of Marangoni convection. The RL model is trained through a two-dimensional (2D) numerical simulation of the TSSG process. As a result, the growth rate under the control of the RL model is improved significantly. The optimized RF-coil parameters based on the control strategy for the 2D melt flow are used in a three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulation for model validation, which predicts a higher and more uniform growth rate. It is shown that the present RL model can significantly reduce the development cost and offers a useful means of finding the optimal RF-coil parameters.