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Vortex shedding in the wake of a cylinder in uniform flow can be suppressed via the application of a porous coating; however, the suppression mechanism is not fully understood. The internal flow field of a porous coated cylinder (PCC) can provide a deeper understanding of how the flow within the porous medium affects the wake development. A structured PCC (SPCC) was three-dimensionally printed using a transparent material and tested in water tunnel facilities using flow visualisation and tomographic particle image velocimetry at outer-diameter Reynolds numbers of $Re = 7 \times 10^{3}$ and $7.3 \times 10^{4}$ , respectively. The internal and near-wall flow fields are analysed at the windward and mid-circumference regions. Flow stagnation is observed in the porous layer on the windward side and its boundary is shown to fluctuate with time in the outermost porous layer. This stagnation region generates a quasi-aerodynamic body that influences boundary layer development on the SPCC inner diameter, that separates into a shear layer within the porous medium. For the first time via experiment, spectral content within the separated shear layer reveals vortex shedding processes emanating through single pores at the outer diameter, providing strong evidence that SPCC vortex shedding originates from the inner diameter. Velocity fluctuations linked to this vortex shedding propagate through the porous layers into the external flow field at a velocity less than that of the free stream. The Strouhal number linked to this velocity accurately predicts the SPCC vortex shedding frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents the first experimental characterization of the flow field in the vicinity of periodically spaced discrete roughness elements (DRE) in a swept wing boundary layer. The time-averaged velocity fields are acquired in a volumetric domain by high-resolution dual-pulse tomographic particle tracking velocimetry. Investigation of the stationary flow topology indicates that the near-element flow region is dominated by high- and low-speed streaks. The boundary layer spectral content is inferred by spatial fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis of the spanwise velocity signal, characterizing the chordwise behaviour of individual disturbance modes. The two signature features of transient growth, namely algebraic growth and exponential decay, are identified in the chordwise evolution of the disturbance energy associated with higher harmonics of the primary stationary mode. A transient decay process is instead identified in the near-wake region just aft of each DRE, similar to the wake relaxation effect previously observed in two-dimensional boundary layer flows. The transient decay regime is found to condition the onset and initial amplitude of modal crossflow instabilities. Within the critical DRE amplitude range (i.e. affecting boundary layer transition without causing flow tripping) the transient disturbances are strongly receptive to the spanwise spacing and diameter of the elements, which drive the modal energy distribution within the spatial spectra. In the super-critical amplitude forcing (i.e. causing flow tripping) the near-element stationary flow topology is dominated by the development of a high-speed and strongly fluctuating region closely aligned with the DRE wake. Therefore, elevated shears and unsteady disturbances affect the near-element flow development. Combined with the harmonic modes transient growth these instabilities initiate a laminar streak structure breakdown and a bypass transition process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of discrete roughness elements on the development and breakdown of stationary crossflow instability on a swept wing is explored. Receptivity to various element heights and chordwise locations is explored using a combination of experimental and theoretical tools. Forcing configurations, determined based on linear stability predictions, are manufactured and applied on the wing in a low turbulence facility. Measurements are performed using infrared thermography, quantifying the transition front location, and planar particle image velocimetry, providing a reconstruction of stationary crossflow instabilities and their associated growth. Measurements are corroborated with simulations based on nonlinear parabolised stability equations. Results confirm the efficacy of discrete roughness elements in introducing and conditioning stationary crossflow instabilities. Primary instability amplitudes and resulting laminar-turbulent transition location are found to strongly depend on both roughness amplitude and chordwise location. The Reynolds number based on element height is found to satisfactorily approximate the initial forcing amplitude, revealing the importance of local velocity effects in non-zero-pressure gradient flows. Direct estimation of initial perturbation amplitudes from nonlinear simulations suggests the existence of pertinent flow mechanisms in the element vicinity, active in conditioning the onset of modal instabilities. Dedicated velocimetry planes, elucidate the development of a momentum deficit wake which rapidly decays downstream of the element followed by mild growth, representing the first experimental evidence of transient behaviour in swept wing boundary layers. The outcome of this work identifies a strong scalability of the transition dynamics to roughness amplitude and location, warranting the upscaling of roughness elements to more accessible, measurable and spatially resolved configurations in future experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lattice Boltzmann simulations were carried out to investigate the noise mitigation mechanisms of a 3-D printed porous trailing-edge insert, elucidating the link between noise reduction and material permeability. The porous insert is based on a unit cell resembling a lattice of diamond atoms. It replaces the last 20 % chord of a NACA 0018 at zero angle-of-attack. A partially blocked insert is considered by adding a solid partition between 84 % and 96 % of the aerofoil chord. The regular porous insert achieves a substantial noise reduction at low frequencies, although a slight noise increase is found at high frequencies. The partially blocked porous insert exhibits a lower noise reduction level, but the noise emission at mid-to-high frequency is slightly affected. The segment of the porous insert near the tip plays a dominant role in promoting noise mitigation, whereas the solid-porous junction contributes, in addition to the rough surface, towards the high-frequency excess noise. The current study demonstrates the existence of an entrance length associated with the porous material geometry, which is linked to the pressure release process that is responsible for promoting noise mitigation. This process is characterised by the aerodynamic interaction between pressure fluctuations across the porous medium, which is found at locations where the porous insert thickness is less than twice the entrance length. Present results also suggest that the noise attenuation level is related to both the chordwise extent of the porous insert and the streamwise turbulent length scale. The porous inserts also cause a slight drag increase compared to their solid counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open-cell porous materials have been reported as a promising concept for mitigating turbulent boundary-layer trailing-edge noise. This manuscript examines the aeroacoustics of a porous trailing edge to study its noise reduction mechanisms. Numerical investigations have been carried out for a NACA 0018 aerofoil with three different types of trailing edge: a baseline solid trailing edge, a fully porous trailing edge and a blocked-porous variant in which a solid core is added at the symmetry plane. The latter prevents flow interaction between the two sides of the aerofoil. Flow-field solutions are obtained by solving the explicit, transient and compressible lattice-Boltzmann equation, while the Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy has been used to compute far-field noise. The porous material is modelled using an equivalent fluid region governed by Darcy's law, in which the properties of a Ni-Cr-Al open-cell metal foam are applied. The simulation results are validated against reference data from experiments. The regular porous trailing edge reduces noise substantially, particularly at low frequency, whereas the blocked variant retains similar noise characteristics as the solid one. By employing a beamforming technique, the dominant source is found at the trailing edge for the solid and blocked trailing edges, while for the fully porous one, the dominant source is located near the solid–porous junction. The analysis of the scattered sound suggests that the permeability of the porous trailing edge allows for acoustic scattering along the porous medium surface that promotes destructive interference, and in turn, attenuates far-field noise intensity. The spectra and spanwise coherence of surface pressure fluctuations at the trailing edge are hardly affected by the presence of the porous material, which are found to be insufficient to justify the noise reduction. The flow field inside the porous medium is also examined to explain the differences between the fully porous and blocked-porous trailing edges. While the mean velocity components are similar for both, substantial difference is found for the velocity fluctuations. The impedance of the porous medium is computed as the ratio of velocity and pressure fluctuations. Unlike the blocked variant, the impedance in the fully porous trailing edge gradually decreases along the downstream direction, which leads to the distributed noise scattering along the porous medium surface. Additionally, the scattering efficiency at the actual trailing edge location is reduced due to the smaller impedance discontinuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between jet-installation noise and the near-field flow features of the corresponding isolated jet is studied by means of lattice-Boltzmann numerical simulations. The computational set-up consists of a flat plate placed in proximity to a jet, replicating the interaction benchmark study carried out at NASA Glenn. Installation effects cause low-frequency noise increase with respect to the isolated case, mainly occurring in the direction normal to the plate and upstream of the jet's exit plane. It is shown that the Helmholtz number, based on the wavelength of eddies in the mixing layer and their distance to the plate trailing edge, predicts the frequency range where installation noise occurs. Based on the isolated jet near field, scaling laws are also found for the far-field noise produced by different plate geometries. The linear hydrodynamic field of the isolated jet shows an exponential decay of pressure fluctuations in the radial direction; it is shown that the far-field spectrum follows the same trend when moving the plate in this direction. In the axial direction, spectral proper orthogonal decomposition is applied to filter out jet acoustic waves. The resultant hydrodynamic pressure fluctuations display a wavepacket behaviour, which can be fitted with a Gaussian envelope. It is found that installation noise for different plate lengths is proportional to the amplitude of the Gaussian curve at the position of the plate trailing edge. These analyses show that trends of jet-installation noise can be predicted by analysing the near field of the isolated case, reducing the need for extensive parametric investigations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trailing-edge serrations are add ons retrofitted to wind-turbine blades to mitigate turbulent boundary-layer trailing-edge noise. This manuscript studies the physical mechanisms behind the noise reduction by investigating the far-field noise and the hydrodynamic flow field. A conventional sawtooth and a combed-sawtooth trailing-edge serration are studied. Combed-sawtooth serrations are obtained by filling the empty space between the teeth with combs (i.e. solid filaments). Both serration geometries are retrofitted to a NACA 0018 aerofoil at zero degree angle of attack. Computations are carried out by solving the explicit, transient, compressible lattice Boltzmann equation, while the acoustic far field is obtained by means of the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings analogy. The numerical results are validated against experiments. It is confirmed that the combed-sawtooth serrations reduce noise more than the conventional sawtooth ones for the low- and mid-frequency range. It is found that the presence of combs affects the intensity of the scattered noise but not the frequency range of noise reduction. For both configurations, the intensity of the surface pressure fluctuations decreases from the root to the tip, and noise sources are mainly located at the serrations root for the low- and mid-frequency range. The presence of the filaments generates a more uniform distribution of the noise sources along the edges with respect to the conventional serration. The installation of combs mitigates the interaction between the two sides of the aerofoil at the trailing edge and the generation of a turbulent wake in the empty space between teeth. As a result, the inward (i.e. from the serration edge to the centreline) and outward (i.e. from the serration centreline to the edge) flow motions, due to the presence of the teeth, are mitigated. It is found that the installation of serrations affects the surface pressure fluctuations integral parameters. Both the spanwise correlation length and convective velocity of the surface pressure fluctuations increase with respect to the baseline straight configuration. When both quantities are similar to the one obtained for the straight trailing edge, the effect of the slanted edge is negligible, thus corresponding to no noise reduction. It is concluded that the changes in sound radiation are mainly caused by destructive interference of the radiated sound waves for which a larger spanwise correlation length is beneficial. Finally, the difference between measurements and the literature is caused by an incorrect modelling of the spanwise correlation length, which shows a different decay rate with respect to the one obtained for a straight trailing edge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kinetic-energy transport and turbulence production within the shear layer of a horizontal-axis wind-turbine wake are investigated with respect to their influence on the tip-vortex pairwise instability, the so-called leapfrogging instability. The study quantifies the effect of near-wake instability and tip-vortex breakdown on the process of mean-flow kinetic-energy transport within the far wake of the wind turbine, in turn affecting the wake re-energising process. Experiments are conducted in an open-jet wind tunnel with a wind-turbine model of 60 cm diameter at a diameter-based Reynolds number range ReD = 150 000-230 000. The velocity fields in meridian planes encompassing a large portion of the wake past the rotor are measured both in the unconditioned and the phase-locked mode by means of stereoscopic particle image velocimetry. The detailed topology and development of the tip-vortex interactions are discussed prior to a statistical analysis based on the triple decomposition of the turbulent flow fields. The study emphasises the role of the pairing instability as a precursor to the onset of three-dimensional vortex distortion and breakdown, leading to increased turbulent mixing and kinetic-energy transport across the shear layer. Quadrant analysis further elucidates the role of sweep and ejection events within the two identified mixing regimes. Prior to the onset of the instability, vortices shed from the blade appear to inhibit turbulent mixing of the expanding wake. The second region is dominated by the leapfrogging instability, with a sudden increase of the net entrainment of kinetic energy. Downstream of the latter, random turbulent motion characterises the flow, with a significant increase of turbulent kinetic-energy production. In this scenario, the leapfrogging mechanism is recognised as the triggering event that accelerates the onset of efficient turbulent mixing followed by the beginning of the wake re-energising process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]