Numerical study of boundary-layer receptivity on a swept wing
Year: 2011
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the flow over a wing with 45◦ sweep and −4◦ angle-of-attack are presented. This flow configuration was investigated in a series of wind-tunnel experiments at the Arizona State University (ASU). On the upper wing side, the flow develops a substantial crossflow and is therefore ideally suited for a study of the receptivity mechanisms of crossflow vortices. Here, we examine the boundary-layer receptivity to surface roughness and to single vortical free-stream modes. The roughness is modeled by a shallow circular disk and is identical with one single element of the spanwise roughness array considered in the ASU experiments. The boundary layer develops a steady crossflow mode downstream of the roughness. The spatial evolution of the modal amplitude obtained by the DNS is in excellent agreement with a solution to the nonlinear parabolized stability equations (NPSE) while being lower than that measured in the experiments. The reasons for this discrepancy are yet to be determined. Possible explanations are the idealization of the roughness array by spanwise periodic boundary conditions in our simulations, or the presence of traveling crossflow waves due to background free-stream turbulence in the experiments. We demonstrate that the boundary-layer receptivity to roughness can be successfully predicted by a nonlocal, adjoint-based receptivity model. Stationary crossflow vortices can also be triggered by zero-frequency free-stream vortical modes. We consider two types of mode, carrying stream wise and chordwise vorticity. Both modes give rise to nonmodal disturbances near the leading edge, which soon evolve into a steady crossflow mode. The boundary layer is found to be somewhat more receptive to the streamwisevorticity mode than to the chordwise vorticity.
DOI: 10.2514/6.2011-3294
Language: English
Subfield: Computational Mechanics
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2176991402