Flow separation

About: Flow separation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 16708 publications have been published within this topic receiving 386926 citations.

Direct numerical study of leading-edge contamination

Abstract: Instability, turbulence, and relaminarization in the attachment-line region of swept and unswept cylindrical bodies are studied by numerical solution of the full Navier-Stokes equations. The flow is simulated over a strip containing the attachment-line and treated as homogeneous in the spanwise direction; the disturbances decay exponentially upstream. Transpiration through the wall may be prescribed. The new method, which admits completely general disturbance, agrees with published linear-stability results, which were limited to an apparently restrictive form of disturbance. Fully developed turbulent solutions with sweep are generated and compare well with the experiment. The turbulence is subcritical (except for blowing), resulting in large hysteresis loops. By lowering the sweep Reynolds number, or increasing the suction, the turbulent flow is made to relaminarize. The relaminarization Reynolds number is much less sensitive to suction than the linear-stability Reynolds number. Extensive attempts to detect the postulated nonlinear instability of the unswept flow failed, suggesting that this flow is linearly and nonlinearly stable.

Stability and transition of a supersonic laminar boundary layer on an insulated flat plate

Abstract: Self-excited oscillations have been discovered experimentally in a supersonic laminar boundary layer along a flat plate. By the use of appropriate measuring techniques, the damping and amplification of the oscillations are studied and the stability limits determined at free-stream Mach numbers 1·6 and 2·2. The wave-like nature of the oscillations is demonstrated and their wave velocities are measured using a specially designed ‘disturbance generator’. It is shown empirically that the stability limits expressed in terms of the boundary-layer-thickness Reynolds number are independent of the Mach number and dependent only on the oscillation frequency. The main effect of compressibility is an increase in wave velocity with Mach number. This has the consequence that the disturbances, although possessing the same dimensionless amplification coefficient as in the incompressible case, have less time (per unit distance) to grow in amplitude. Thus, the adiabatic compressible boundary layer is shown to be more stable than the incompressible one. In general, the experiments confirm the basic assumptions and predictions of the existing stability theory and also suggest the desirability of improvement in the theory in certain phases of the problem. Finally, on the basis of these results a rough estimate of the transition Reynolds number is made in the compressible flow range.

Separation shock motion in fin, cylinder, and compression ramp - Induced turbulent interactions

Abstract: In conjunction with new experimental results at Mach 5, an examination has been made of published data on unsteadiness of shock-induced turbulent boundary-layer separation. The data are all wall pressure fluctuation measurements made under the unsteady separation shock and are from interactions induced by compression ramps, blunt and sharp fins, and circular cylinders. There is little evidence of a link between the separation shock zero-crossing frequency and characteristic frequency of the incoming boundary layer. The low shock frequencies and low shock speeds, and the trends with changes in model geometric parameters and incoming boundary layer, suggest that turbulent or global fluctuations at the upstream boundary of the separated flow drive the shock motion.

Airfoil boundary-layer development and transition with large leading-edge roughness

Abstract: An experimentalstudy of the effects of largedistributed roughness located neartheleading edgeofan airfoilhas been performed to determine the effect on boundary-layer development and transition. Boundary-layer measure- ments werecarried out on a two-dimensional NACA0012 airfoil with a 53.34-cm chord through theuse of hot-wire anemometry at Reynolds numbers of 0 .75 £ 10 6 , 1.25 £ 10 6 , and 2.25 £ 10 6 . These measurements included mean anductuating velocity, turbulence intensity, ¯ ow® eld intermittency, and associated integral parameters. The roughness used was of the type and density observed to occur during the initial glaze ice accretion process. Results have shown that the transitional boundary layer induced by large distributed roughness is markedly different from the smooth model Tollmein± Schlicting induced transition process. No fully developed turbulent boundary layers were observed to occur near the roughness location. Instead, the large distributed roughness was observed to trigger a transitional boundary layer at or very near the roughness location. This transitional boundary layer required asubstantialchordwiseextentto obtaina fully developedturbulentstate.Streamwiseturbulenceintensity levels in the roughness induced transitional region were observed to berelatively low as compared with the smooth model transitional region.

Three-dimensional simulation of blood flow in an abdominal aortic aneurysm--steady and unsteady flow cases.

Abstract: Atherosclerosis and atherosclerotic aneurysms can occur in the abdominal aorta. Steady and unsteady three-dimensional flow cases were simulated in abdominal aortic aneurysm using a flow simulation package on a graphics workstation. In the steady case, three aneurysm models of 8.0 cm length were simulated using Reynolds numbers of 350 and 700. In the unsteady case, blood flow in a single asymmetric aneurysm of 8.0 cm length was simulated at Reynolds numbers of 350 and 700 and 1400. In the aneurysm center, two symmetric vortices were formed, and flow separation started at the aneurysm inlet. In the unsteady flow case, the main vortex appeared and disappeared and changed position in the unsteady flow case and induced vortices were formed. Although the centerline view shows the vortices change position with time, cross-sectional views show that two symmetric vortices are present or partially formed throughout the entire flow cycle. Regions of high pressure were observed at the aneurysm exit caused by the symmetric vortices that were formed, implying that this high-pressure region could be an area where rupture is most likely. In the unsteady case, regions of maximum pressure moved depending on the flow cycle time; at peak flow, local pressure maximums were observed at the distal aneurysm; these oscillated, tending to put an additional strain on the distal portion of the aneurysm. The shear stress was low in the aneurysm portion of the vessel, and local maximum values were observed at the distal aneurysm constriction.