An experimental investigation of unsteady turbulent-wake/boundary-layer interaction

An experimental investigation of unsteady-wake/boundary-layer interaction, similar to that occurring in turbomachinery, has been conducted in a specially modified wind tunnel. Unsteadiness in a turbomachine is periodic in nature, due to the relative motion of rotor and stator blades, resulting in travelling-wave disturbances that affect the blade boundary layers. In the experimental rig, travelling-wave disturbances were generated by a moving airfoil apparatus installed upstream of a flat plate to provide a two-dimensional model of a turbomachine stage. The boundary layer on the flat plate was tripped near the leading edge to generate a turbulent flow prior to interaction with the wakes, and measurements of velocity throughout the boundary layer were taken with a hot-wire probe. The Reynolds number, based on distance along the plate, ranged from 0.144×10⁵ to 1.44×10⁵, and all data were reduced through a process of ensemble averaging. Due to the nonlinear interactions with the boundary layer, the travelling discrete frequency wakes were found to decrease the shape factor of the velocity profile and to increase the level of turbulent fluctuations. Unlike the phase advance found with stationary-wave external disturbances, velocity profiles subject to the travelling wake fluctuations exhibited increasingly negative phase shifts from the free-stream towards the wall.