2024/02/20 by Li Li, Junsheng Wu, Yihua Liang +1 · 1 voice
Engineering · #Plasma and Flow Control in Aerodynamics #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Aerodynamics and Fluid Dynamics Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.3389/arc.2024.12506
openalex publication_date 2024/02/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Drag reduction through turbulent boundary layer control (TBLC) is an essential way to develop green aviation technologies. Compared with traditional approaches for drag reduction, turbulence drag reduction is a relatively new technology, particularly for skin friction drag reduction, and it is becoming a hotspot problem worldwide. This paper focuses on the research of micro fluidic-jet actuators used for outer-layer boundary layer control with high-performance computing (HPC). This study aims to reduce turbulent drag by reshaping the flow structure within the turbulent boundary layer. To ensure the calculation accuracy of the core region and reduce the consumption of computing resources, a zonal LES/RANS strategy and WMLES method are proposed to simulate the effects of fluidic-actuators for outer-layer boundary control, in which high-performance computing has to be involved. The studies are performed on the classical zero-gradient turbulent flat plate cases, in which three different control strategies named “W-control,” “V-control,” and “VW-control” are used and compared to study the effects of drag reduction under a low Reynolds number at Re τ = 470 and a higher Reynolds number at Re τ = 4700. The mechanism for drag reduction is analysed via a pre-multiplied spectral method and a parallel dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) method. The results show that the present approach can effectively simulate the outer-layer turbulent boundary control where the “V-control” with the fluidic-jet actuator array behaves well to achieve an average drag reduction (DR) rate of more than 5% for the high Reynolds number case of the flat plate boundary layer. The high Reynolds shear stress and turbulent kinetic energy distribution in the boundary layer region show an obvious uplift under the effects of actuators, which is the main mechanism for drag reduction.