Unsteady Simulation of Transonic Buffet of a Supercritical Airfoil with Shock Control Bump

Abstract

The unsteady flow characteristics of a supercritical OAT15A airfoil with a shock control bump were numerically studied by a wall-modeled large eddy simulation. The numerical method was first validated by the buffet and nonbuffet cases of the baseline OAT15A airfoil. Both the pressure coefficient and velocity fluctuation coincided well with the experimental data. Then, four different shock control bumps were numerically tested. A bump of height h/c = 0.008 and location xB/c = 0.55 demonstrated a good buffet control effect. The lift-to-drag ratio of the buffet case was increased by 5.9%, and the root mean square of the lift coefficient fluctuation was decreased by 67.6%. Detailed time-averaged flow quantities and instantaneous flow fields were analyzed to demonstrate the flow phenomenon of the shock control bumps. The results demonstrate that an appropriate “λ” shockwave pattern caused by the bump is important for the flow control effect.

Keywords

• transonic buffet
• large eddy simulation
• shock control bump
• supercritical airfoil