Understanding turbulent skin-friction drag reduction by spanwise forcing

Abstract

Reducing the turbulent skin-friction drag is a long-standing effort in fluid dynamics; the importance of flow control and drag reduction is growing steadily because of environmental and economical reasons. This work is centered on spanwise forcing, which includes a set of active strategies to alternately force the near-wall flow in the vicinity of a solid wall in the spanwise direction. Spanwise forcing, to which the research group of the PI provided seminal contributions from the very beginning, has gained popularity in the recent research literature. However, the physical mechanism of its effectiveness has not been fully understood, and practical (i.e. passive) implementations of the concept have not been identified yet. The goal of this project is to design and carry out via high-accuracy numerical simulations some thought experiments aimed at physical understanding, and to leverage such physical understanding to progress towards passive realizations of spanwise forcing.

Document Details

Document Type
DoD Grant Award
Publication Date
Feb 06, 2025
Source ID
FA86552517006

Entities

People

  • Maurizio Quadrio

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Polytechnic University of Milan
  • United States Air Force

Tags

Readers

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.
  • Systems Analysis and Design