Passive control of deep cavity shear layer flow at subsonic speed

Abstract

Passive control of the flow over a deep cavity at low subsonic velocity is considered in the present paper. The cavity length-to-depth aspect ratio is L/H = 0.2. particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements characterized the flow over the cavity and show the influence of the control method on the cavity shear layer development. It is found that both the “cylinder” and the “shaped cylinder”, placed upstream from the cavity leading edge, result in the suppression of the aero-acoustic coupling and highly reduce the cavity noise. It should be noted that the vortical structures impinge at almost the same location near the cavity downstream corner with and without passive control. The present study allows to identify an innovative passive flow control method of cavity resonance. Indeed, the use of a “shaped cylinder” presents similar suppression of the cavity resonance as with the “cylinder” but with less impact on the cavity flow. The “shaped cylinder” results in a smaller shear layer growth than the cylinder. Velocity deficiency and turbulence levels are less pronounced using the “shaped cylinder”. The “cylinder” tends to diffuse the vorticity in the cavity shear layer and thus the location of the maximum vorticity is more affected as compared to the “shaped cylinder” control. The fact that the “shaped cylinder” is capable of suppressing the cavity resonance, despite the vortex shedding and the high frequency forcing being suppressed, is of high interest from fundamental and applied points of view.