School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton

Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics

Research Group
 School of Engineering Sciences
Teaching
• Undergraduate courses (BEng & MEng)
– Aerospace Engineering
– Mechanical Engineering
– Ship Science

• Size & Quality

– ~230 U/G students per annum
– Average A-level score: 26.7 (>ABB)
– All courses satisfy SARTOR requirements for CEng
School of Engineering Sciences
Research Groups
• Aerodynamics & Flight Mechanics (AFM)
• Astronautics
• Bioengineering Science
• Computational Engineering & Design
• Electromechanical
• Fluid-Structure Interactions
• Materials
• Thermal Fluids & Superconductivity
 Staff and students
• 11 staff
– Ian Castro - Sergei Chernyshenko
– Gary Coleman - Paul Cunningham
– Simon Newman - Graham Roberts
– Neil Sandham - Kenji Takeda
– Glyn Thomas - Owen Tutty
– Xin Zhang

• 32 Post-doctoral researchers and PhD students

 Facilities
• 3.5m x 2.6m and 2.1m x 1.7m wind tunnels (50m/s)
• Integral rolling road and propeller testing facilities
• Advanced flow diagnostics (LDA, PIV)
• Transonic, supersonic and hypersonic flow facilities
• High-performance graphics workstations
• In-house parallel computers
• Flight simulator
 School of Engineering Sciences
Interdisciplinary Research in Fluid Mechanics

Comp Eng & Design Fluid-Structure

(UTP, e-Science) Interactions (DARP)

Aerodynamics & Flight

Mechanics (2 DARPs)
Physics of Fluid Flows

FDAG - ISVR WIND TUNNELS

(RR UTC)
 Rotorcraft

Contact: Simon Newman

Rotor - Ship Interactions

• PIV Test
• Wind Tunnel Force
Measurement
• PC Controlled Traverse
System
• Modelling of Flow Patterns
Vortex Ring State

• V22 Incidents
• Current EPSRC Contract
• Cierva Lecture 2002
Blade Sailing

• Method & Code Origination

• Used by Westland for EH101 / Merlin

 DARP 2002
• Integration of Emerging Technologies
• Modification of Design Codes
• Southampton designated the Central Focus for Application
Ground Effect Aerodynamics

Contact: Xin Zhang

 Out of Ground Effect
Driver cockpit (cavity) Rear wing

Front wing Wheel

? Undertray/diffuser

In Ground Effect
 Aerodynamics Forces on an F1
Racing Car

Overall aerodynamic downforce could be 3 times of the weight of a F1 car

Front wing: 35% Undertray/diffuser: 30% Rear wing: 35%

Operating in proximity of ground Aid diffuser performance

Understeer: Oversteer:
Too little grip at the front Too little grip at the rear
R.J. Mitchell Wind Tunnel with
Moving Ground
An Example of LDA Use
 Downforce Behaviour
Zerihan & Zhang (2000)
1. Three regions
2. Two-dimensional
features: separation,
wall jet, shear layer
inabilities, etc.
Downforce

3. Three-dimensional
features: edge vortex.

c'
e d b' b a
c

Height
 Surface Oil Flow Example

Separation

Laminar boundary layer

Separation bubble Turbulent boundary layer
 Wing-in-ground effect

Ω: -18 -16 -14 -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

0.2
y/c

0.0

-0.2
0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
x/c
 The Burst of Edge Vortex
At and below the point of max rate increase of down-force

h/c = 0.134 h/c = 0.090

0.4
0.4

0.3
0.3

0.2
0.2

y/c
y/c

0.1
0.1

0.0
0.0

-0.1
-0.1

-0.2
-0.2
-0.8 -0.7 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 -0.8 -0.7 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1
z/c z/c
0.5 U∞
ωc/U∞: -10.0 -6.2 -2.3 1.5 5.4 9.2 13.1 16.9 20.8 24.6 28.5 32.3 36.2 40.0
Undertray and diffuser
 Aeroacoustics

Contact: Xin Zhang and Neil Sandham

 CAA test case: (mode 4, freq 11.7)
Chen & Zhang, 2002
2

1.5 M=0
y

0.5 M=0.14

0
2 3 4 5 6 7
x

2 SPL (dB)
93
1.5 77
M=0
61
45
y

1
29
0.5 13
M=0.14
-3
-19
0
2 3 4 5 6 7
x
 Noise propagation and radiation
from bypass duct and core nozzle of
an aircraft engine
(partly funded under the EU TurboNoise project)

SPL (dB)
105
90
75
60
45
30
15
0
Noise from near wall turbulence
Comparative source ranking
(Hu, Morfey & Sandham JFM 2002):

Reynolds-stress
Shear stress quadrupole
dipole

Dissipation
monopole

f = 10
 New Project: DARP 2002
Broadband Noise

Rotor Tip Gap

Rotor Tip Flow/OGV Interaction
Rotor Boundary Layer
OGV Boundary Layer
Wake/OGV Interaction
OGV Trailing Edge
Rotor Trailing Edge
 Cavity Noise
Zhang, Bissessur and Ashcroft
 Hypersonics

Contact: Graham Roberts

Light Piston,
Isentropic
Compression
hypersonic facility
(SULPIC)
 Results for 9º wedge angle
(Bura, Roberts 2002)

0 .0 06
C o m p uta tio na l
0 .0 04 Eckert

0 .0 02
cf

-0 .0 02

0 25 50 75 100 12 5 1 50 175 200

X (m m )
 Flight Simulator

Contact: Simon Newman, Kenji Takeda

 COTS-Based Flight Simulator
• Flight simulator using COTS hardware
and software: O(£10,000)
• Two T4 Harrier ejection seats from BAe
Dunsfold
• System uses multiple PCs running
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002
• Leverages open architecture of FS2002
– Photorealistic Scenery
(20cm/pixel)
– DEM scenery 5-10m resolution
– Ability to add 3D scenery objects
– Aircraft models transferable from
CAE
 Recent Work
• Pilot Workload Evaluation system
(Qinetiq)
• Investigated helicopter approach
paths onto Royal Navy frigates
• Seven-crew/nine display flight
simulation of Lancaster for Channel 4
• Integrating in-house flight modelling
software to use FS2002 as a multi-
headed Image Generator
• BAE SYSTEMS Chairman’s Award
for Innovation
Environmental and Fundamental
Fluid Mechanics

Contact: Ian Castro, Sergei Chernyshenko

 Wind flow over a desert
valley
Giles Wiggs & Brian Garvey (Geography, Sheffield)
Ian P Castro (Southampton) Jo Bullard
(Loughborough)
•Study the effect of
an isolated valley
on the boundary
layer flow over
otherwise
homogeneous
terrain
•Assess the
implications for
aeolian transport
• field observations in Namibia
• wind tunnel measurements at
Southampton
 Vortex shedding from tapered
obstacles
to explore how the degree of spanwise taper
(variation in cross-stream body width) affects the
shedding process
untapered tapered

'Intermittent' cellular shedding (constant frequency)

occurs, with multiple cells depending on aspect ratio.
 Trapped Vortices
Chernyshenko

Vortex shedding gives Trapped vortex gives

increased drag, reduced drag. Cell shape
unsteady loads on the should be chosen carefully,
body, and produces an and flow stabilisation may
unsteady wake. be required.
Future work:
•Active control of trapped vortices
•Turbulence modelling of flows with trapped vortices
•Vortex cell shape optimisation
 Partner in:

Thematic Network on
Quality and Trust for the
industrial applications of
Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD)
• External Aerodynamics
• Combustion & Heat Transfer
• Chemical & Process, Thermal Hydraulics Nuclear Safety
• Civil Construction & HVAC
• Environment
• Turbomachinery Internal Flows
 Turbulence Simulation

Contacts: Gary Coleman, Neil Sandham,

Glyn Thomas
Turbulence problems in aerodynamics
Jet noise

Turbulent
boundary layer
Wake vortices

Wing leading-edge
Wing trailing edge
 Visualisation of near-wall
turbulent flow

At surface

Away from surface Experiment

 Properties of turbulence

• Wide range of time and space scales

• Three-dimensional
• Nonlinear
• Unpredictable (in the chaos sense)
• Good at mixing
• Often coherent large scales, incoherent small
scales
 Where are we now?
Perspectives from the 1999 Isaac Newton
Institute Programme

• No universality and no general turbulence

model
• Structures vs. statistics
• Internal instabilities
• Dynamical systems for near-wall turbulence
• Inner/outer layer couplings and Re effects
• Coupled modelling and simulation
• De-filtering and algorithmic simulations
• Guidelines for simulation
 Building blocks of reliable
turbulence simulation
• Numerical methods (stable, accurate)
• Grid (fine enough to resolve small scales)
• Validation (exact solutions, convergence tests,
comparisons to experiments etc)
• Hardware
Alternative Moore’s
Y = 1942 + 9 ln N
law for For DNS: (Year Y for N3 simulation)

10000

1000
N

HPC(x)
100
CSAR
NASA
10
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Year
 UK Turbulence Consortium
2001-2004

• Avital, Luo, Williams (QMUL): large-eddy simulation,

jet flows, aeroacoustics, bluff body and open channel flows
• Cant, Savill (Cambridge): combustion, two-equation and
transition modelling
• Coleman, Sandham (Southampton, PI): separation
bubbles, wake flows, shock boundary layer interaction,
compressible turbulence, aeroacoustics
• Craft (UMIST): nonlinear eddy viscosity and second
moment turbulence modelling
• Morrison, Sherwin, Vassilicos (Imperial): wavelet
analysis, unsteady fluid/structure interaction, blood flow,
kinematic simulations, scalar transport
• Nicolleau (Sheffield): Kinematic simulation
• Voke (Surrey): large-eddy simulation
 Strained-channel simulation
Coleman, Kim & Spalart 2000/2002

Spatial flow Strained-channel DNS

Replace spatial problem with parallel-flow idealisation:

• computationally efficient
• 1D/unsteady flow for model testing
Simulations of some turbulence
problems in aerodynamics

DNS

DNS

DNS/LES

DN
S/
LE
S
DNS of transitional bubble
Alam & Sandham, 1999
Details of transition

Resolved:
•AI/CI boundary
•downstream relaxation

Open questions:
• self-sustained transition
• low-frequency modes
• bubble bursting
 Shock boundary-layer interaction
model problems

Dolling (2001): ‘How feasible DNS simulations for

one or two canonical cases might be five years from
now is uncertain’
Transitional bump flow
Lawal & Sandham, 2001

e
Trailing-edge flow simulation
Yao & Sandham, 1999

• Cray T3E (early time)

• 1024*512*128 grid
points (max)
• turbulent inflow
• convective outflow
• spanwise-periodic
Plan view • free-slip upper/lower
 3
Plan view

Side view 1 4

2 5
 DNS of flow control

Base blowing
 Future landmarks (DNS)
(for ‘resolved’ LES subtract 13 years)

20000

Aerofoil Re=106
15000
b.l. Rθ = 10000
N

10000

5000

0
1990 2000 2010 2020 2030
Year

Re*16 variation (channel) Full-scale Re Turbine blade passage

trailing edge