Suppression of flow separation of a high-lift wing with active flow control

Sun, Qiangqiang; Bahri, Faycal; Jabbal, Mark; Stryczniewicz, Wit; Jefferson-Loveday, Richard; Stefes, Bruno; Büscher, Alexander

Abstract

Flow separation caused by the integration of a leading edge slat cut-out to accommodate an ultra-high bypass ratio engine reduces the maximum lift coefficient. In this study, an active flow control approach including 88 pulsed jet nozzles near the leading edge is used to control flow separation over a multi-element high-lift aerofoil. A hybrid large-eddy simulation (LES) and stress-blended eddy simulation (SBES) method is deployed to analyze flow physics and wind tunnel tests are also performed for the flow with/without control. The results show that severe flow separation is observed for the clean case by visualizing the streamlines on the airfoil's surface via numerical and experimental methods. Compared with the clean case, the stall angle is delayed by around 4°, and the maximum lift coefficient is increased by more than 15% after deploying the active flow control. Meanwhile, when the active flow control is imposed, a lift enhancement region caused by the vortex shedding downstream of the jet nozzles is formed adjacent to the leading edge, and its scale becomes larger along the spanwise direction.

Citation

Sun, Q., Bahri, F., Jabbal, M., Stryczniewicz, W., Jefferson-Loveday, R., Stefes, B., & Büscher, A. (2025). Suppression of flow separation of a high-lift wing with active flow control. Aerospace Science and Technology, 159, Article 110017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2025.110017

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 3, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Feb 8, 2025
• Publication Date: 2025-04
• Deposit Date: Feb 11, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 11, 2025
• Journal: Aerospace Science and Technology
• Print ISSN: 1270-9638
• Electronic ISSN: 1270-9638
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 159
• Article Number: 110017
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2025.110017
• Keywords: Lift enhancement; Flow separation; Multi-element wing; Active flow control; Pulsed jet flow control
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/45308463
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1270963825000896?via%3Dihub