Active Flow Control With an Oscillating Backward Facing Step

Author(s):  
Sertac Cadirci ◽  
Hasan Gunes

An oscillatory, zero-net-mass flux actuator system, Jet and Vortex Actuator (JaVA), is implemented on the step wall of a backward facing step. JaVA is shown previously both experimentally and numerically that it can energize the boundary layer by creating jets or vortices thus it may delay flow separation when used properly. The main part of JaVA is a rectangular cavity with a moving actuator plate. The actuator plate is mounted asymmetrically inside the cavity of the JaVA box, such that there are one narrow and one wide gap between the plate and the box. The main governing parameters are the actuator plate’s width (b), the amplitude (a) and the operating frequency (f). The main target of the control with active jets on the step wall is to influence directly the main recirculation zone, thus as the actuator plate or the step’s vertical wall moves periodically in horizontal direction, a jet emerges into the recirculation zone. Non-dimensional numbers such as the scaled amplitude (Sa = 2πa/b) and the jet Reynolds number (ReJ = 4abf/ν) as well as the maximum cross flow velocity characterize the JaVA-induced flow types and effects on the recirculation zone. One period consists of one blowing and one suction phase into the recirculation zone. The actuator plate has a sinusoidal motion determined by the amplitude and the operating frequency. Time-averaged flow fields and boundary layer profiles for actuated and not actuated cases at various operating frequencies indicate the effect of active flow control. The control effectiveness is given by the ratio of the jet Reynolds number to the Reynolds number of the incoming flow (r = ReJ/Re). A transient finite-volume-based laminar, incompressible Navier-Stokes solver (Fluent) has been used to study the flow fields generated by JaVA. The computational domain consists of a moving zone along the channel and the motion of the actuator plate is generated by a moving grid imposing appropriate boundary conditions with User-Defined-Functions (UDF). Numerical simulations reveal the JaVA-boundary layer interaction in the narrow channel for various governing parameters such as frequencies (jet Reynolds numbers) and channel flow velocities (Reynolds numbers, Re = 200, 400 and 800). The proposed control method based on suction and blowing with an oscillating backward facing step (OsBFS) seems to be effective in shortening the recirculation zone length and delaying the flow separation downstream of the backward facing step.

Author(s):  
Sertac Cadirci ◽  
Hasan Gunes

An oscillatory, zero-net-mass flux actuator system, Jet and Vortex Actuator (JaVA), is implemented on the step wall of a backward facing step. JaVA can energize the boundary layer by creating jets or vortices thus it may delay flow separation when used properly. The main part of JaVA is a rectangular cavity with a moving actuator plate. The actuator plate is mounted asymmetrically inside the cavity of the JaVA box, such that there are one narrow and one wide gap between the plate and the box. The main governing parameters are the actuator plate’s width (b), the amplitude (a) and the operating frequency (f). The main target of the control with active jets on the step wall is to influence directly the main recirculation zone, thus as the actuator plate or the step’s vertical wall moves periodically in horizontal direction, a jet emerges into the recirculation zone. Non-dimensional numbers such as the scaled amplitude (Sa = 2πa/b) and the jet Reynolds number (ReJ = 4abf/ν) as well as the cross flow parameter characterize the JaVA-induced flow types and the effects on the recirculation zone. One period consists of one blowing and one suction phase into the recirculation zone. Boundary layer profiles extracted from time-averaged flow fields of the not actuated (f = 0) and actuated cases at various operating frequencies indicate the effect of active flow control. The interaction between JaVA-induced flow regimes and the boundary layer is investigated numerically in an open channel with a BFS. The computational domain consists of a moving zone along the channel and the motion of the actuator plate is generated by a moving grid imposing appropriate boundary conditions with User-Defined-Functions and the calculations are carried out by a commercial finite-volume-based unsteady, laminar, incompressible Navier-Stokes solver. Numerical simulations and comparisons reveal the JaVA-boundary layer interaction for various governing parameters. Reynolds numbers based on the step height for the shallow open channel flow are Reh = 225 and 450. The proposed control method based on suction and blowing with an oscillating vertical step seems to be effective in shortening the recirculation zone length and delaying the flow separation downstream of the backward facing step.


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.


Author(s):  
M. Tadjfar ◽  
D. J. Kamari

Abstract The effects of applying a coupled unsteady blowing and suction combination over SD7003 airfoil at Reynolds number of 60,000 at an angle of attack of 13°, where a large separation on the suction side of the airfoil existed, was considered to investigate active flow control (AFC) mechanism. URANS equations were employed to solve the flow field and k–ω SST was used as the turbulence model. The unsteady blowing and suction were implemented at an angle to the surface crossing the boundary layer (CBL). The influence of location and frequency of the blowing/suction jets were examined.


Author(s):  
Julia Kurz ◽  
Reinhard Niehuis

One application method of active flow control is the exploitation of the interaction between transition and flow separation on a profile. As turbulent flows are able to withstand higher adverse pressure gradients the enforcement of the transition process can be utilized to prevent or to reduce flow separation. This paper focuses on gaining a better understanding of high frequency active flow control (AFC) by fluidic oscillators and its influence on the transition process for a separated boundary layer. Flow control is applied on a highly loaded turbine exit case (TEC) profile which was in particular designed for this application. The profile is investigated in the high-speed cascade wind tunnel at the Bundeswehr University Munich. Significant loss reduction by AFC could be observed by total pressure loss determination in the low Reynolds number regime. In order to gain a better understanding of development of the suction side boundary layer, several boundary layer profiles are determined by hot-wire measurements at six axial positions on the suction side of the profile. Differences between the boundary layer development and the extent of the separation can be detected. Furthermore, a stability analysis of the boundary layer upstream of separation is conducted and compared to the measured frequency spectra.


Author(s):  
Sertac Cadirci ◽  
Hasan Gunes

Jet and Vortex Actuator (JaVA) is a zero-net-mass flux device for active flow control of boundary layers and transition. JaVA produces various jets which can be used to delay flow separation or to “steer” the boundary layer velocity profile. In this study, numerical simulations of JaVA-boundary layer interactions are analyzed using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD). JaVA-induced flow regimes are governed by the plate width (b), the amplitude (a) and the operating frequency (f). In this study the frequency is changed between 2/3 Hz and 8/3 Hz keeping the plate width and the amplitude constant. A commercial finite-volume-based unsteady, laminar, incompressible Navier-Stokes solver has been used to study the flow fields generated by JaVA. Then, POD is applied to time dependent snapshots of velocity fields at each operating frequency. The POD modes revealed the behavior of the flat plate boundary layer under the effect of active flow control. Traveling modes can be captured in the successive modes for high frequencies.


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.


Author(s):  
Ehsan Asgari ◽  
Mehran Tadjfar

In this study, we have applied and compared two active flow control (AFC) mechanisms on a pitching NACA0012 airfoil at Reynolds number of 1 × 106 using 2-D computational fluid dynamics (CFD). These mechanisms are continuous blowing and suction which are applied separately on the airfoil which pitches around its quarter-chord in a sinusoidal motion. The location for suction and blowing was determined in our previous study based on the formation of a counter clock-wise vortex near the leading-edge. In our current study, we have compared the effectiveness of pure blowing and pure suction in suppressing the dynamic stall vortex (DSV) which is the main contributor to the drag increase, particularly near the maximum angle of attack (AOA) and in early downstroke motion. The blowing/suction slot is considered as a dent on the airfoil surface which enables the AFC to perform in a tangential manner. This configuration would allow blowing jet to penetrate further downstream and was shown to be more effective compared to a cross-flow orientation. We have compared the two aforementioned mechanisms in terms of hysteresis loops of lift and drag coefficients and have demonstrated the dynamics of flow in controlled and uncontrolled situations.


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):  
Valentin Bettrich ◽  
Martin Bitter ◽  
Reinhard Niehuis

The use of fluidic oscillators for active flow control applications is a proven and efficient concept. For the well-known highly loaded LP turbine profile T161, the total pressure losses could already reduced by 40% at low Reynolds numbers, were usually flow separation occurs. For further improvements of the active flow control concept, it is essential to understand the driving flow phenomena responsible for the loss reduction mechanism, which are discussed in this paper. The results presented are based on experimental investigations on a flat plate with pressure gradient, imposed with an aerodynamically highly loaded low pressure turbine suction side flow and equipped with active flow control. The analogy to the suction side of the T161 is shown and validated against former cascade measurements. Based on the T161 equivalent operating point of Re = 70,000 and a theoretical out flow Mach number of Ma2,th = 0.6, the focus is set on the interaction of the boundary layer flow with high frequency actuation. The chosen actuator, a high frequency coupled fluidic oscillator, is designed to independently adjust mass flow and frequency. The flat plate is equipped with an array of high frequency actuators to control the flow separation. For this study one oscillator operating point at 6.7kHz is presented and the influence on transition and loss reduction compared to the non-actuated case is discussed. This oscillator operating point was found to be most efficient and the steady and unsteady mixing behavior of the high frequency actuator impact and the low pressure turbine like suction side boundary layer flow is investigated in much detail. Depending on the measurement technique, the isentropic Mach number distribution, frequency spectra, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis are evaluated. The most important results are on the one hand, that the chosen concept is more efficient compared to former studies in means of mass flow investment, which is mainly based on the chosen oscillator outlet position and frequency. On the other hand, in a transonic flow the mixing and interaction of the high frequency pulses and the boundary layer flow require about 10% of the surface length to even establish and about to 30% to be completed. These results of the mixing behavior between actuator and boundary layer for compressible flow conditions help to attain a fundamental understanding for future designs of active flow control concepts.


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