An Experimental Study of a Turbulent Wing-Body Junction and Wake Flow

Abstract

Extensive hot-wire measurements were conducted in incompressible turbulent flow around a wing-body junction. Measurements were performed adjacent to the body and up to 11.56 chord lengths downstream of the body. Junction wake flow entered an adverse pressure gradient region approximately 6 chord lengths downstream. This region's geometry approximated the aft portion of an aircraft fuselage or a submersible's hull. Body geometry was formed by joining a 3:2 elliptic nose to a NACA 0020 tail section at their respective maximum thickness locations. Measurements were taken with approach flow conditions of Re sub theta = 6,300, and delta/T = .513, where T is maximum body thickness. Results clearly show the characteristic horseshoe vortex flow structure. Which is elliptically shaped, with del(W)/del Y forming the primary component of streamwise vorticity. Near wall measurements show a thin layer of highly concentrated vorticity, underneath and opposite in sign to the primary vortex, which is created by the wall no-slip condition. Development of flow distortions and associated vorticity distributions are highly dependent on the geometry-induced pressure gradients and resulting flow skewing directions. A quantity known as the 'distortion function' was used to separate distortive effects of secondary flow from those of the body and the local 2-D boundary layer. The distortion function revealed that adverse pressure gradient flow distortions grew primarily because of increasing boundary layer thickness.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1991
Accession Number
ADA243388

Entities

People

  • J. L. Fleming
  • R. L. Simpson
  • William J. Devenport

Organizations

  • Virginia Tech

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundary Layer
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Flow Visualization
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Fluid Flow
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Geometry
  • Hydrodynamics
  • Measurement
  • Pressure Distribution
  • Pressure Gradients
  • Pressure Measurement
  • Secondary Flow
  • Static Pressure
  • Three Dimensional
  • Turbulent Mixing
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerodynamics/Aeronautics.
  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.