Wavy Walls, a Passive Way to Control the Transition to Turbulence. Detailed Simulation and Physical Explanation

Andrés Mateo-Gabín, Miguel Chávez, Jesús Garicano-Mena and Eusebio Valero
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Andrés Mateo-Gabín: ETSI Aeronáutica y del Espacio (ETSIAE)—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Miguel Chávez: ETSI Aeronáutica y del Espacio (ETSIAE)—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Jesús Garicano-Mena: ETSI Aeronáutica y del Espacio (ETSIAE)—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Eusebio Valero: ETSI Aeronáutica y del Espacio (ETSIAE)—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 13, 1-13

Abstract: Inducing spanwise motions in the vicinity of solid boundaries alters the energy, mass and/or momentum transfer. Under some conditions, these motions are such that drag is reduced and/or transition to turbulence is delayed. There are several possibilities to induce those spanwise motions, be it through active imposition a predefined velocity distribution at the walls or by careful design of the wall shape, which corresponds to passive control.In this contribution, we investigate the effect that wavy walls might have on delaying transition to turbulence. Direct Numerical Simulation of both planar and wavy-walled channel flows at laminar and turbulent regimes are conducted. A pseudo laminar regime that remains stable until a Reynolds number 20 % higher that the critical is found for the wavy-walled simulations. Dynamic Mode Decomposition applied to the simulation data reveals that in these configurations, modes with wavelength and frequency compatible with the surface undulation pattern appear. We explain and visualize the appearance of these modes. At higher Reynolds numbers we show that these modes remain present but are not dominant anymore. This work is an initial demonstration that flow control strategies that trigger underlying stable modes can keep or conduct the flow to new configurations more stable than the original one.

Keywords: transition; turbulence; direct numerical simulation; wavy wall; flow control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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