Active Friction Drag Reduction in Turbulent Boundary Layer Flow

Keyvisual image main
Image: AIA, RWTH Aachen University

A new active surface actuation technique to reduce the friction drag of turbulent boundary layers is applied to the flow around an aircraft wing section. Through the interaction of the transversal traveling surface wave with the turbulent flow structures, the skin-friction on the surface can be considerably reduced. Highly-resolved large-eddy simulations are conducted to investigate the influence of the surface actuation technique on the turbulent flow field around an airfoil at subsonic flow conditions. The active technique, which previously was only tested in generic scenarios, achieves a considerable decrease of the airfoil drag.

Read the complete user research report at the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing.

Principal Investigator

Matthias Meinke

Chair of Fluid Mechanics and Institute of Aerodynamics, RWTH Aachen University