Wake turbulence

About: Wake turbulence is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1529 publications have been published within this topic receiving 23703 citations.

Vortex shedding from oscillating bluff bodies

Abstract: When placed ih a fluid stream, some bodies generate separated flow over a substantial proportion of their surface and hence can be classified as bluff. On sharp-edged bluff bodies, separation is fixed at the salient edges, whereas on bluff bodies with continuous surface curvature the location of separation depends both on the shape of the body and the state of the boundary layer. At low Reynolds numbers, when separation first occurs, the flow around a bluff body remains stable, but as the Reynolds number is increased a critical value is reached beyond which instabilities develop. These instabilities can lead to organized unsteady wake motion, dis­ organized motion, or a combination of both. Regular vortex shedding, the subject of this article, is a dominant feature of two-dimensional bluff-body wakes and is present irrespective of whether the separating boundary layers are laminar or turbulent. It has been the subject of research for more than a century, and many hundreds of papers have been written. In recent years vortex shedding has been the topic of Euromech meetings reported on by Mair & Maull (1971) and Bearman & Graham (1980), and a comprehensive review has been undertaken by Berger & Wille (1972). Vortex shedding and general wake turbulence induce fluctuating pres­ sures on the surface of the generating bluff body, and if the body is flexible this can cause oscillations. Oscillations excited by vortex shedding are usually in a direction normal to that of the free stream, and amplitudes as large as 1.5 to 2 body diameters may be recorded. In addition to the generating body, any other bodies in its wake may be forced into oscillation. Broad-band force fluctuations, induced by turbulence produced in the flow around a bluff body, rarely lead to oscillations as severe as those caused by vortex shedding. Some form of aerodynamic instability, such that move-

An experimental study of round jets in cross-flow

Abstract: The structure of round jets in cross-flow was studied using flow visualization techniques and flying-hot-wire measurements. The study was restricted to jet to freestream velocity ratios ranging from 2.0 to 6.0 and Reynolds numbers based on the jet diameter and free-stream velocity in the range of 440 to 6200.Flow visualization studies, together with time-averaged flying-hot-wire measurements in both vertical and horizontal sectional planes, have allowed the mean topological features of the jet in cross-flow to be identified using critical point theory. These features include the horseshoe (or necklace) vortex system originating just upstream of the jet, a separation region inside the pipe upstream of the pipe exit, the roll-up of the jet shear layer which initiates the counter-rotating vortex pair and the separation of the flat-wall boundary layer leading to the formation of the wake vortex system beneath the downstream side of the jet.The topology of the vortex ring roll-up of the jet shear layer was studied in detail using phase-averaged flying-hot-wire measurements of the velocity field when the roll-up was forced. From these data it is possible to examine the evolution of the shear layer topology. These results are supported by the flow visualization studies which also aid in their interpretation.The study also shows that, for velocity ratios ranging from 4.0 to 6.0, the unsteady upright vortices in the wake may form by different mechanisms, depending on the Reynolds number. It is found that at high Reynolds numbers, the upright vortex orientation in the wake may change intermittently from one configuration of vortex street to another. Three mechanisms are proposed to explain these observations.

Wake meandering: a pragmatic approach

Abstract: The phenomenon of wake meandering is long known empirically, but has so far not been treated in a satisfactory manner on the wind turbine load modelling side. We present a consistent, physically based theory for wake meandering, which we consider of crucial importance for the overall description of wind turbine loadings in wind farms. In its present version, the model is confined to single wake situations—including a simple heuristic description of wake interaction with a reflecting surface. Contrary to previous attempts to model wind turbine wake loading, the present approach opens for a unifying description in the sense that turbine power and load aspects can be treated simultaneously. This capability is a direct and attractive consequence of the model being based on the underlying physical process, and it potentially opens for optimization of wind farm topology, wind farm operation, as well as control strategies for the individual turbine. The application of the proposed dynamic wake meandering methodology with existing aeroelastic codes is straightforward and does not involve any code modifications. The strategy is simply to embed the combined effect of atmospheric turbulence, added wake turbulence and the intermittent ‘turbulence contribution’, caused by wake meandering, in files replacing the traditional turbulence file input to aeroelastic computations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Experiments on scalar dispersion within a model plant canopy part I: The turbulence structure

Abstract: This is the first of a series of three papers describing experiments on the dispersion of trace heat from elevated line and plane sources within a model plant canopy in a wind tunnel. Here we consider the wind field and turbulence structure. The model canopy consisted of bluff elements 60 mm high and 10 mm wide in a diamond array with frontal area index 0.23; streamwise and vertical velocity components were measured with a special three-hot-wire anemometer designed for optimum performance in flows of high turbulence intensity. We found that: (i) The momentum flux due to spatial correlations between time-averaged streamwise and vertical velocity components (the dispersive flux) was negligible, at heights near and above the top of the canopy. (ii) In the turbulent energy budget, turbulent transport was a major loss (of about one-third of local production) near the top of the canopy, and was the principal gain mechanism lower down. Wake production was greater than shear production throughout the canopy. Pressure transport just above the canopy, inferred by difference, appeared to be a gain in approximate balance with the turbulent transport loss. (iii) In the shear stress budget, wake production was negligible. The role of turbulent transport was equivalent to that in the turbulent energy budget, though smaller. (iv) Velocity spectra above and within the canopy showed the dominance of large eddies occupying much of the boundary layer and moving downstream with a height-independent convection velocity. Within the canopy, much of the vertical but relatively little of the streamwise variance occurred at frequencies characteristic of wake turbulence. (v) Quadrant analysis of the shear stress showed only a slight excess of sweeps over ejections near the top of the canopy, in contrast with previous studies. This is a result of improved measurement techniques; it suggests some reappraisal of inferences previously drawn from quadrant analysis.

Phase-resolved characterization of vortex shedding in the near wake of a square-section cylinder at incidence

Abstract: The vortex formation and shedding process in the near wake region of a 2D square-section cylinder at incidence has been investigated by means of particle image velocimetry (PIV). Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is used to characterize the coherent large-scale flow unsteadiness that is associated with the wake vortex shedding process. A particular application of the POD analysis is to extract the vortex-shedding phase of individual velocity fields, which were acquired at asynchronous low rate with respect to the vortex shedding cycle. The phase of an individual flow field is determined from its projection on the first pair of POD modes, allowing phase averaging of the measurement data to be performed. In addition, a low-order representation of the flow, constructed from the mean and the first pair of POD modes, is found to be practically equivalent to the phase-averaged results. It is shown that this low-order representation corresponds to the basic Fourier component of the flow field ensemble with respect to the reconstructed phase. The phase-averaged flow representations reveal the dominant flow features of the vortex-shedding process and the effect of the angle of incidence upon it.