Aerodynamics and aeroacoustics of turbulent flows over and past permeable rough surfaces

Completed

Renewable Energy Sources(Wind Energy)
Energy Efficiency(Transport)
Not Energy Related
Energy Efficiency(Industry)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr B Ganapathisubramani
School of Engineering Sciences
University of Southampton

Standard

EPSRC

01 July 2019

31 December 2024

66 months

£910,574

Mechanical engineering

South East

NC : Engineering

Dr B Ganapathisubramani, School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton

Dr R Deiterding, Sch of Engineering, University of Southampton

Project Contact, University of Southern California, USA
Project Contact, Embraer, Brazil
Project Contact, United Nations

A variety of turbulent flows are either over porous surfaces or in the wake of bodies with surface porosity. Evolution, engineering design, manufacturing constraints and natural phenomena lead to rough and permeable boundaries in these porous surfaces (e.g. flow in heat exchangers, forest and urban canopies, bird feathers and river beds). The permeability and the roughness of a porous surface alters the turbulent boundary layer that develops over it and consequently the wake past an object with surface porosity. This entirely depends on the interaction between the external flow in the boundary layer over the roughness or the wake and the flow field within the porous media. Despite the wide-ranging impact and relevance, there is a clear lack of fundamental understanding and the scaling laws that relate the properties of porous media to the features of external flow. This points to the clear need for a systematic fundamental study aimed at understanding the flow mechanisms and the relationship between the properties of porous substrates, the flow field within the porous media and the structure of turbulent flow over and past them. In this ambitious collaborative project we combine the experimental expertise at Southampton and Bristol with the computational and modelling expertise at Cambridge and Southampton, to gain fundamental understanding of the turbulent boundary-layer and wake flow over and past permeable rough surfaces. This will be used to develop a fully-validated modelling framework that can predict the aerodynamics and aeroacoustics of turbulent flows interacting with realistic porous surfaces. Specifically, we will (1) examine the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic characteristics of wall-turbulence that develop over porous surfaces using high-fidelity experiments, (2) we will perform detailed DNS and LES of flow over porous surfaces using new in-house tools to understand the interaction between internal flow within the porous media and external flows, (3) use the experimental and numerical data to develop new models to represent the interaction between internal and external flow of porous surfaces in other lower fidelity simulations, (4) Utilise the new models in LES to predict the aerodynamics and aeroacoustics and (5) carry out measurements on the aerodynamics and aeroacoustics of flow over and past permeable rough surfaces over a large range of Reynolds numbers to further our understanding as well as to validate our new models. Ultimately, this will enable us and our industry partner to examine the utility of different realistic porous surfaces in flow/noise control

15/08/19