Numerical Simulation of Receptivity for a Transition Experiment

Abstract

The cost of fuel to overcome turbulence induced viscous drag on a commercial airplane constitutes a significant fraction of the operating cost of an airline. Achieving laminar flow and maintaining it over a large portion of the wing can significantly reduce the viscous drag, and hence the cost. Design of such laminar-flow-control wings and their practical operation requires the ability to accurately and reliably predict the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. The transition process begins with the conversion of environmental and surface disturbances into the instability waves of the flow by a process called receptivity. The goal of the current research project has been to improve the prediction of transition through a better understanding of the physics of receptivity. The initial objective of this work was to investigate the specific stability and receptivity characteristics of a particular experimental investigation of boundary layer receptivity at NASA Langley. Some simulation results using direct solutions of the linearized Navier-Stokes equations which modeled this experiment where presented in the 1999 APS DFD meeting. However, based on these initial investigations, it became clear that to cover the vast receptivity parameter space required for a practical transition prediction tool, more efficient methods would be required. Thus, the focus of this research was shifted from modeling this particular experiment to formulating and developing new techniques that could efficiently yet accurately predict receptivity for a wide range of disturbance conditions.