Fluidic control for turbulent drag reduction
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Faculty of Engineering & the Environment
Abstract
In principle, it is possible to cover an aircraft wing or ship hull with sensors and actuators and pass the signal from the sensors to a computer, which will control the actuators in such a way that overall fuel consumption is reduced. The Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE) established a target of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2020. This implies a considerable reduction in turbulent friction drag within a very short time scale - flight tests should be conducted not later than 2012. The IUTAM Symposium on flow control and MEMS (Imperial College, 19 - 22.09.2006) showed that while there is steady progress in the area, if the current pace of research is maintained, in-flight testing of turbulent drag reduction by active control will be hard to achieve by 2012. Therefore, at the expense of a higher risk, state-of-the-art knowledge in turbulence drag reduction by active control has to be used as is without waiting for further progress, so as to develop programs which can lead to flight tests in 2012. This proposal presents such a program. We propose to develop an advanced fluidic material such that the variations of the wall shear stress will induce the wall suction and blowing such that it will lead to drag reduction.
| Description | In principle, it is possible to cover an aircraft wing or ship hull with sensors and actuators and pass the signal from the sensors to a computer, which will control the actuators in such a way that overall fuel consumption is reduced. The Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE) established a target of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2020. This implies a considerable reduction in turbulent friction drag within a very short time scale - flight tests should be conducted not later than 2012. The IUTAM Symposium on flow control and MEMS (Imperial College, 19 - 22.09.2006) showed that while there is steady progress in the area, if the current pace of research is maintained, in-flight testing of turbulent drag reduction by active control will be hard to achieve by 2012. Therefore, at the expense of a higher risk, state-of-the-art knowledge in turbulence drag reduction by active control has to be used "as is" without waiting for further progress, so as to develop programs which can lead to flight tests in 2012. This project was a high-risk high-potential-output attempt to develop an advanced "fluidic" material such that the variations of the wall shear stress would induce the wall suction and blowing in a way that would lead to drag reduction. It turned out that pressure fluctuations always present in the turbulent flow would have too large detrimental effect. To compensate, one has to introduce additional active elements. Within available time and resources an evaluation of the possibility of adding fluidic amplifies as active elements and an initial study of microfabrication routes was performed. As a by-product of the research performed, a simple microfluidic shear-stress sensor was proposed and its performance investigated both experimentally and computationally. |
| Exploitation Route | Further ideas for drag reduction can be developed as continuation, with the obtained results used as the step stone. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Transport |
| Description | In determining further directions of research on turbulent drag reduction. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2008 |
| Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |