A new experimental setup for studies on wake flow instability and its control that successfully has been designed and manufactured, is introduced and de- scribed. The main body is a dual-sided flat plate with an elliptic leading edge and a blunt trailing edge. Permeable surfaces enable boundary layer suction and/or blowing that introduce the unique feature of adjusting the inlet condition of the wake created behind the plate. This, in combination with a trailing edge that is easily modified, makes it an ideal experiment for studies of different control methods for the wake flow instability as well as extensive parameter studies. Experimental validation of the setup has been performed by means of measurements of the wake symmetry and boundary layer velocity profiles at the trailing edge. Some preliminary results on the Strouhal number versus different inlet conditions are reported. Additionally, an in-house vortex detection (VD) program has been developed in order to detect, analyse and compare small-scale vortical structures in instantaneous velocity fields from flow measurements. This will be a powerful tool for comparison of wake characteristics for varying inlet conditions and control methods in the new experimental setup. Measurements from three completely separate experimental setups with different geometries and flow cases, have been analysed by the VD-program.          i.     In order to obtain improved ventilation we have studied the effect of pulsating inflow into a closed volume compared to having the inflow at a constant flow rate. We show that the number of small-scale eddies is significantly increased and that the stagnation zones are reduced in size, which enhances the mixing.         ii.     Instantaneous velocity fields in the wake behind a porous cylinder subjected to suction or blowing through the entire cylinder surface have also been analysed using the VD-program. The results show that the major change for different levels of blowing or suction is the location of vortices while the most common vortex size and strength are essentially unchanged.        iii.     Another study on how the geometry of a V-shaped mixer in a pipe flow affects the mixing have also been examined, where no general differences were found between different thicknesses, why a thickness that is favourable from an acoustic point of view can be chosen.   We also propose a new method, using global mode analysis on experimental data, showing that randomly ordered snapshots of the velocity field behind the porous cylinder can be re-ordered and phase-averaged. / QC 20111108 / Active control of vortex shedding behind bluff bodies

The wake behind a rectangular forebody with variable inlet conditions is investigated. The perforated surface of the two-dimensional rectangular forebody, with a smooth leading edge and a blunt trailing edge, allows for boundary layer modification by means of wall suction. The test section, of which the rectangular forebody is the main part, is experimentally evaluated with a series of hot-wire and Prandtl tube measurements in the boundary layer and the wake. For a suction coefficient of Γ&gt;9, corresponding to 0.9% suction of the free stream velocity, the asymptotic suction boundary layer (ASBL) is obtained at the trailing edge of the forebody for laminar boundary layers (Rex=1.6×105−3.8×105). The key feature of the ASBL, a spatially invariant boundary thickness which can be modified independent of the Reynolds number, is used to perform a unique parametrical study. Turbulent boundary layers (Rex=4.5×105−3.0×106) subject to wall suction are also investigated. For a critical suction coefficient Γcrit, which depends on Rex, the boundary layer relaminarizes. Strong evidence is found to support the hypothesis that turbulent boundary layers will ultimately attain the ASBL as well, provided that the wall suction is strong enough. The effect of the modulated laminar and turbulent boundary layers on the wake characteristics is studied. The shape of the mean wake velocity profile, scaled with the velocity deficit U0and the wake half width ∆y1/2, is found tobe independent of x/h, for x/h&gt; 6 and Reh &gt;6.7×103. The wake width is shown to scale with the effective thickness of the body h+2δ1, where the ratio is expected to vary with the downstream location. A decrease of the displacement thickness leads to a decrease of the base pressure, with Cp,b = −0.36 in the ASBL limit. The Strouhal number based on the effective thickness becomes Sth+2δ1 ≈ 0.29 in the ASBL limit and independent of the plate thickness (h) Reynolds number, in the range Reh = 2.9×103 − 6.7×103. For the turbulent boundary Sth+2δ1 is found to be 25% lower, which shows that the wake characteristics depend on the state of the boundary layer at the trailing edge. The total drag is found to be reduced by as much as 30% for Reh = 2.7×104 when a wall normal velocity of only 3.5% of the free stream velocity is applied. Wall suction successively reduces the total drag with increasing wall suction, at least in the Reynolds number rangeReh = 8.0×103−5.5×104. / <p>QC 20140312</p>

Both experimental and theoretical studies have beenconsidered on flat plate boundary layers as well as on wakesbehind porous cylinders. The main thread in this work iscontrol, which is applied passively and actively on boundarylayers in order to inhibit or postpone transition toturbulence; and actively through the cylinder surface in orderto effect the wakecharacteristics. An experimental set-up for the generation of the asymptoticsuction boundary layer (ASBL) has been constructed. This studyis the first, ever, that report a boundary layer flow ofconstant boundary layer thickness over a distance of 2 metres.Experimental measurements in the evolution region, from theBlasius boundary layer (BBL) to the ASBL, as well as in theASBL are in excellent agreement with boundary layer analysis.The stability of the ASBL has experimentally been tested, bothto Tollmien-Schlichting waves as well as to free streamturbulence (FST), for relatively low Reynolds numbers (Re). For the former disturbances good agreement is foundfor the streamwise amplitude profiles and the phase velocitywhen compared with linear spatial stability theory. However,the energy decay factor predicted by theory is slightlyoverestimated compared to the experimental findings. The latterdisturbances are known to engender streamwise elongated regionsof high and low speeds of fluid, denoted streaks, in a BBL.This type of spanwise structures have been shown to appear inthe ASBL as well, with the same spanwise wavelength as in theBBL, despite the fact that the boundary layer thickness issubstantially reduced in the ASBL case. The spanwise wavenumberof the optimal perturbation in the ASBL has been calculated andis β = 0.53, when normalized with the displacementthickness. The spanwise scale of the streaks decreases withincreasing turbulence intensity (Tu) and approaches the scale given by optimalperturbation theory. This has been shown for the BBL case aswell. The initial energy growth of FST induced disturbances hasexperimentally been found to grow linearly as Tu2Rexin the BBL, the transitional Reynolds numberto vary as Tu-2, and the intermittency function to have a relativelywell-defined distribution, valid for all Tu. The wake behind a porous cylinder subject to continuoussuction or blowing has been studied, where amongst other thingsthe Strouhal number (St) has been shown to increase strongly with suction,namely, up to 50% for a suction rate of 2.5% of the free streamvelocity. In contrast, blowing shows a decrease ofStof around 25% for a blowing rate of 5% of the freestream velocity in the considered Reynolds number range. Keywords:Laminar-turbulent transition, asymptoticsuction boundary layer, free stream turbulence,Tollmien-Schlichting wave, stability, flow control, cylinderwake. / QC 20100607