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A mechanism for mitigation of blade–vortex interaction using leading edge blowing flow control

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Abstract

The interaction of a vortical unsteady flow with structures is often encountered in engineering applications. Such flow structure interactions (FSI) can be responsible for generating significant loads and can have many detrimental structural and acoustic side effects, such as structural fatigue, radiated noise and even catastrophic results. Amongst the different types of FSI, the parallel blade–vortex interaction (BVI) is the most common, often encountered in helicopters and propulsors. In this work, we report on the implementation of leading edge blowing (LEB) active flow control for successfully minimizing the parallel BVI. Our results show reduction of the airfoil vibrations up to 38% based on the root-mean-square of the vibration velocity amplitude. This technique is based on displacing an incident vortex using a jet issued from the leading edge of a sharp airfoil effectively increasing the stand-off distance of the vortex from the body. The effectiveness of the method was experimentally analyzed using time-resolved digital particle image velocimetry (TRDPIV) recorded at an 800 Hz rate, which is sufficient to resolve the spatio-temporal dynamics of the flow field and it was combined with simultaneous accelerometer measurements of the airfoil, which was free to oscillate in a direction perpendicular to the freestream. Analysis of the flow field spectra and a Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) of the TRDPIV data of the temporally resolved planar flow fields indicate that the LEB effectively modified the flow field surrounding the airfoil and increased the convecting vortices stand-off distance for over half of the airfoil chord length. It is shown that LEB also causes a redistribution of the flow field spectral energy over a larger range of frequencies.

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Abbreviations

Γ:

Vortex circulation

a :

Projection coefficient

d :

Vortex stand-off distance

U :

Velocity

u :

Velocity ensemble

φ :

POD Optimal basis function

λ :

POD Eigenmode eigenvalues

R :

Cross correlation tensor

M:

Flow control momentum coefficient

c :

Airfoil chord length

D :

Cylinder diameter

f :

Cylinder shedding frequency

w :

Airfoil thickness at mid-chord

h :

Flow control jet slot height

l :

BVI Interaction length

L :

Lift per unit length of airfoil

T :

Noise disturbance reception time

v :

Component of velocity normal to freestream

x :

Observer position in airfoil fixed frame

y :

Position orthogonal to airfoil chord

ρ :

Freestream density

η :

Airfoil leading edge to circular cylinder mount point

q :

Airfoil span

St :

Strouhal number

N :

Maximum number of eigenmodes for reconstruction

s :

Nondimensional strength

∞:

Freestream condition

j :

LEB jet parameter, modal summation

i :

Modal summation

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Acknowledgments

This research was sponsored by Techsburg, Inc through ONR contract number N00014-03-M-0277. The authors also wish to acknowledge the help of Patrick Leung and John Charonko for their help during this project. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Patrick Leung.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, 114S Randolph Hall, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    Chris Weiland & Pavlos P. Vlachos

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  1. Chris Weiland
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  2. Pavlos P. Vlachos
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Correspondence to Pavlos P. Vlachos.

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Weiland, C., Vlachos, P.P. A mechanism for mitigation of blade–vortex interaction using leading edge blowing flow control. Exp Fluids 47, 411–426 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-009-0672-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-009-0672-z

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