Much research and experiments have gone into studying idealized wing-body junction flows and their impact on horseshoe vortex and wake formation.  The vortices have been found to generate regions of high surface pressure fluctuations and turbulence that are detrimental to structural components and acoustics.  With the focus in the military and commercial industry on reducing the acoustical impact of aircraft and their engines, very little research has been done to examine the potential impact wing-body junctions may have on acoustics, especially for high lifting bodies such as propellers.  Two similar tests were conducted in the Virginia Tech Open Jet Wind Tunnel where boundary layer measurements, oil flow visualizations, acoustic linear array and surface pressure fluctuation measurements of a baseline Rood airfoil model and two novel junction fairing designs were all taken.  Boundary layer measurements were taken at four locations along the front half of the flat plate and the profiles were shown to be all turbulent despite the low Reynolds number of the flow, (test 1: Re_"<1400, test 2: Re_"<550).  Oil flow visualizations were taken and compared to those of previous researchers and the location of separation and line of low shear along with the maximum width of the wake and width of wake at the trailing edge all scaled relatively well with the Momentum Deficit Factor, defined for wing-body junction flows [Fleming, J. L., Simpson, R. L., Cowling, J. E. & Devenport, W. J., 1993. An Experimental Study of a Turbulent Wing-Body Junction and Wake Flow. Experiments in Fluids, Volume 14, pp. 366-378. ].  A linear microphone array was used to estimate the directivity of the facility acoustic background noise to be used to improve background subtraction methods for surface pressure fluctuation measurements.  Surface pressure fluctuation spectra were taken ahead of the leading edge of the plate and along the surface of the models.  These showed that the fairings reduced pressure fluctuations along the plate upstream of the leading edge, with fairing 1 reducing them to clean tunnel flow levels.  On the surface of the models, the fairings tended to reduce low frequency (<1000Hz) pressure fluctuation peaks when compared to the baseline model and increase the pressure fluctuations in the high frequency range.  Simple scaling arguments indicate that this spectral change may be more beneficial than detrimental as low frequency acoustics especially those between 800 Hz and 1200 Hz are the frequencies that humans perceive as the loudest noise levels.  Scaling the frequencies measured to those of full scale applications using Strouhal numbers show that frequencies below 1000 Hz in this experiment result in frequencies at the upper limit of the human hearing frequency range.  Low frequency acoustic waves also tend to travel farther and high frequency acoustic waves are more apt to be absorbed by the surrounding atmosphere. / Master of Science

This thesis investigates the turbulent flow in the wake of the wing-body junction of the NASA Common Research Model to further reveal its complex vortical structure and to contribute to the reference database used for Computational Fluid Dynamics validation activities. Compressible flows near two wall-boundary layers occurs not only at the wing-body junction but at every control surface of an airplane, therefore increased knowledge about this complex flow structure could potentially improve the estimates of drag performance and control surface efficiency, primarily for minimizing the environmental impact of commercial flight. The airplane model is modified by adding an inboard flap to investigate the influence from the deflection on the vorticity and velocity field. Future flap designs and settings are discussed from a performance improvement point of view, with the investigated flow influence in mind. The experimental measurements for this thesis were collected using a Cobra Probe, a dynamic multi-hole pressure probe, for Reynolds numbers close to one million based on the wing root chord. A pre-programmed three-dimensional grid was used to cover the most interesting parts of the junction flow. The facility used for the tests is a 120 cm by 80 cm indraft, subsonic wind tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center’s Fluid Mechanics Lab, which provides an on-set flow speed of around Mach 0.15, corresponding to approximately 48 m/s. / Den här avhandlingen undersöker det turbulenta flödet runt övergången mellan flygplanskropp och vinge på en NASA Common Research Model för att vidare utforska den komplexa, tredimensionella strukturen av flödet och bidra till NASA’s officiella databas för jämförelser med simulerade flöden. Kompressibla flöden nära tvåväggsgränsskikt uppkommer inte bara vid övergången mellan flygplanskropp och vinge utan även vid varje kontrollyta på ett flygplan. Ökad kunskap om flödets beteende vid sådana områden kan därför bidra till en bättre uppskattning av prestanda och effektivitet av kontrollytorna och flygplanet i sin helhet, vilket kan bidra till minskad miljöpåverkan från kommersiell flygtrafik. Flygplansmodellen är modifierad genom montering av en vingklaff på den inre delen av vingen, detta för att undersöka hur olika vinklar på klaffarnas nedböjning påverkar flödets struktur och hastighetsfält. Framtida klaffdesigner och inställningar för ökad prestanda diskuteras även utifrån denna påverkan. Mätningarna i vindtunneln gjordes med en Cobra Probe, ett dynamisk tryckmätningsinstrument, speciellt designad för turbulenta och instabila flöden. Reynoldsnumren som generades av den subsoniska, indrags-vindtunneln var ungefär en miljon baserad på vingrotens längd, vilket motsvarar knappt en tiondel av normala flygförhållanden för samma flygplansmodell.