scholarly journals Investigation of Laminar Separation Bubble on Flat Plate with Adverse Pressure Gradient: Time-Averaged Flow Field Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Yonglei Qu ◽  
Dario Barsi ◽  
Daniele Simoni ◽  
Pietro Zunino ◽  
Yigang Luan

The performance of turbomachinery blade profiles, at low Reynolds numbers, is influenced by laminar separation bubbles (LSBs). Such a bubble is caused by a strong adverse pressure gradient (APG), and it makes the laminar boundary layer to separate from the curved profile surface, before it becomes turbulent. The paper consists on a joint experimental and numerical investigation on a flat plate with adverse pressure gradient. The experiment provides detailed results including distribution of wall pressure coefficient and boundary layer velocity and turbulence profiles for several values of typical influencing parameters on the behavior of the flow phenomena: Reynolds number, free stream turbulence intensity, and end-wall opening angle, which determines the adverse pressure gradient intensity. The numerical work consists on carrying out a systematic analysis, with Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations. The results of the numerical simulations are critically investigated and compared with the experimental ones in order to understand the effect of the main physical parameters on the LSB behavior. For RANS simulations, different turbulence and transition models are compared at first to identify the adaptability to the flow phenomena; then, the influence of the three aforementioned parameters on the LSB behavior is investigated under a typical aggressive adverse pressure gradient. Boundary layer integral parameters are discussed for the different cases in order to understand the flow phenomena in terms of flow time-mean properties.

Author(s):  
Daniel Routson ◽  
James Ferguson ◽  
John Crepeau ◽  
Donald McEligot ◽  
Ralph Budwig

In Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) models simplifying assumptions breakdown in near wall regions. Wall functions/treatments become inaccurate and the homogeneity and isotropy models may not hold. To see the effect that these assumptions have on the validity of boundary layer results in a commercially available RANS code, key boundary layer parameters are compared from laminar, transitional, and fully turbulent RANS results to an existing direct numerical simulation (DNS) simulation for flow over a flat plate with an adverse pressure gradient (APG). Parameters compared include velocity profiles in the free stream, boundary layer thicknesses, skin friction coefficient and the pressure gradient parameter. Results show comparable momentum thickness and pressure gradient parameters between the transition RANS model and the DNS simulation. Differences in the onset of transition between the RANS transition model and DNS are compared as well. These simulations help evaluate the models used in the RANS code. Of most interest is the transition model, a transition shear-stress transport (SST) k–omega model. The RANS code is being used in conjunction with an APG boundary layer experiment being undertaken at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL).


2019 ◽  
Vol 213 ◽  
pp. 02077
Author(s):  
Vladislav Skála ◽  
Václav Uruba ◽  
Pavel Antoš ◽  
Pavel Jonáš

Bypass boundary layer transition in flows on flat plate by adverse pressure gradient was investigated experimentally. It was measuered cases with combination of adverse pressure gradient by different free stream turbulence intenzity. Hot wire anemometry technique was used. Measuerement were made on flat plate in closed wind tunnel. Adverse pressure gradient was set by diffuser in tested section of wind tunnel. Grid turbulence of free stream was controlled by screen. Hot wire anemometry technique was used, intermitency factor was evaluated. Results were compared wih cases with simpliest conditions.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Hu ◽  
Zifeng Yang

An experimental study was conducted to characterize the transient behavior of laminar flow separation on a NASA low-speed GA (W)-1 airfoil at the chord Reynolds number of 70,000. In addition to measuring the surface pressure distribution around the airfoil, a high-resolution particle image velocimetry (PIV) system was used to make detailed flow field measurements to quantify the evolution of unsteady flow structures around the airfoil at various angles of attack (AOAs). The surface pressure and PIV measurements clearly revealed that the laminar boundary layer would separate from the airfoil surface, as the adverse pressure gradient over the airfoil upper surface became severe at AOA≥8.0deg. The separated laminar boundary layer was found to rapidly transit to turbulence by generating unsteady Kelvin–Helmholtz vortex structures. After turbulence transition, the separated boundary layer was found to reattach to the airfoil surface as a turbulent boundary layer when the adverse pressure gradient was adequate at AOA<12.0deg, resulting in the formation of a laminar separation bubble on the airfoil. The turbulence transition process of the separated laminar boundary layer was found to be accompanied by a significant increase of Reynolds stress in the flow field. The reattached turbulent boundary layer was much more energetic, thus more capable of advancing against an adverse pressure gradient without flow separation, compared to the laminar boundary layer upstream of the laminar separation bubble. The laminar separation bubble formed on the airfoil upper surface was found to move upstream, approaching the airfoil leading edge as the AOA increased. While the total length of the laminar separation bubble was found to be almost unchanged (∼20% of the airfoil chord length), the laminar portion of the separation bubble was found to be slightly stretched, and the turbulent portion became slightly shorter with the increasing AOA. After the formation of the separation bubble on the airfoil, the increase rate of the airfoil lift coefficient was found to considerably degrade, and the airfoil drag coefficient increased much faster with increasing AOA. The separation bubble was found to burst suddenly, causing airfoil stall, when the adverse pressure gradient became too significant at AOA>12.0deg.


2009 ◽  
Vol 629 ◽  
pp. 263-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
SOURABH S. DIWAN ◽  
O. N. RAMESH

This is an experimental and theoretical study of a laminar separation bubble and the associated linear stability mechanisms. Experiments were performed over a flat plate kept in a wind tunnel, with an imposed pressure gradient typical of an aerofoil that would involve a laminar separation bubble. The separation bubble was characterized by measurement of surface-pressure distribution and streamwise velocity using hot-wire anemometry. Single component hot-wire anemometry was also used for a detailed study of the transition dynamics. It was found that the so-called dead-air region in the front portion of the bubble corresponded to a region of small disturbance amplitudes, with the amplitude reaching a maximum value close to the reattachment point. An exponential growth rate of the disturbance was seen in the region upstream of the mean maximum height of the bubble, and this was indicative of a linear instability mechanism at work. An infinitesimal disturbance was impulsively introduced into the boundary layer upstream of separation location, and the wave packet was tracked (in an ensemble-averaged sense) while it was getting advected downstream. The disturbance was found to be convective in nature. Linear stability analyses (both the Orr–Sommerfeld and Rayleigh calculations) were performed for mean velocity profiles, starting from an attached adverse-pressure-gradient boundary layer all the way up to the front portion of the separation-bubble region (i.e. up to the end of the dead-air region in which linear evolution of the disturbance could be expected). The conclusion from the present work is that the primary instability mechanism in a separation bubble is inflectional in nature, and its origin can be traced back to upstream of the separation location. In other words, the inviscid inflectional instability of the separated shear layer should be logically seen as an extension of the instability of the upstream attached adverse-pressure-gradient boundary layer. This modifies the traditional view that pegs the origin of the instability in a separation bubble to the detached shear layer outside the bubble, with its associated Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism. We contend that only when the separated shear layer has moved considerably away from the wall (and this happens near the maximum-height location of the mean bubble), a description by the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability paradigm, with its associated scaling principles, could become relevant. We also propose a new scaling for the most amplified frequency for a wall-bounded shear layer in terms of the inflection-point height and the vorticity thickness and show it to be universal.


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