Investigation of Transition Delay by Dynamic Surface Deformation

Abstract

Numerical calculations were carried out to investigate control of transition on a flat plate by means of local dynamic surface deformation. The configuration and flow conditions are similar to a previous computation which simulated transition mitigation. Physically, the surface modification may be produced by piezoelectrically driven actuators located below a compliant aerodynamic surface, which have been employed experimentally. One actuator is located in the upstream plate region and oscillated at the most unstable frequency of 250 Hz to develop disturbances representing Tollmien–Schlichting instabilities. A controlling actuator is placed downstream and oscillated at the same frequency, but with an appropriate phase shift and modified amplitude to decrease disturbance growth and delay transition. While the downstream controlling actuator is two-dimensional (spanwise invariant), several forms of upstream disturbances were considered. These included disturbances which were strictly two-dimensional, those which were modulated in amplitude and those which had a spanwise variation of the temporal phase shift. Direct numerical simulations were obtained by solution of the three-dimensional compressible Navier–Stokes equations, utilizing a high-fidelity computational scheme and an implicit time-marching approach. A previously devised empirical process was applied for determining the optimal parameters of the controlling actuator. Results of the simulations are described, features of the flowfields elucidated, and comparisons made between solutions of the uncontrolled and controlled cases for the respective incoming disturbances. It is found that the disturbance growth is mitigated and the transition is delayed for all forms of the upstream perturbations, substantially reducing the skin friction.