Publications

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A sub-scale experiment has been conducted to study the trailing vortex shed from a tapered fin installed on a wind tunnel wall to represent missile configurations. Stereoscopic particle image velocimetry measurements have been acquired in the near-field for several locations downstream of the fin tip and at different fin angles of attack. The vortex's tangential velocity is found to decay with downstream distance while its radius increases, but the vortex core circulation remains constant. Circulation and tangential velocity rise greatly for increased fin angle of attack, but the radius is approximately constant or slightly decreasing. The vortex axial velocity is always a deficit, whose magnitude diminishes with downstream distance and smaller angle of attack. No variation with Mach number can be discerned in the normalized velocity data. Vortex roll-up is observed to be largely complete by about four root chord lengths downstream of the fin trailing edge. Prior to this point, the vortex is asymmetric in the tangential velocity but the core radius stays nearly constant. Vortical rotation draws low-speed turbulent fluid from the wind tunnel wall boundary layer into the vortex core, which appears to hasten vortex decay and produce a larger axial velocity deficit than might be expected. Self-similarity of the vortex is established even while it is still rolling up. Attempts to normalize vortex properties by the fin's lift coefficient proved unsuccessful.

A sub-scale experiment has been constructed using fins mounted on one wall of a transonic wind tunnel to investigate the influence of fin trailing vortices upon downstream control surfaces. Data are collected using a fin balance instrumenting the downstream fin to measure the aerodynamic forces of the interaction, combined with stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry to determine vortex properties. The fin balance data show that the response of the downstream fin essentially is shifted from the baseline single-fin data dependent upon the angle of attack of the upstream fin. Freestream Mach number and the spacing between fins have secondary effects. The velocimetry shows that the vortex strength increases markedly with upstream fin angle of attack, though even an uncanted fin generates a noticeable wake. No variation with Mach number can be discerned in the normalized velocity data. Correlations between the force data and the velocimetry suggest that the interaction is fundamentally a result of an angle of attack superposed upon the downstream fin by the vortex shed from the upstream fin tip. The Mach number influence arises from differing vortex lift on the leading edge of the downstream fin even when the impinging vortex is Mach invariant.

Particle image velocimetry data have been acquired in the far field of the interaction generated by an overexpanded axisymmetric supersonic jet exhausting transversely from a flat plate into a subsonic compressible crossflow. Mean velocity fields were found in the streamwise plane along the flowfield centerline for different values of the crossflow Mach number M{sub {infinity}} and the jet-to-freestream dynamic pressure ratio J. The magnitude of the streamwise velocity deficit and the vertical velocity component both decay with downstream distance and were observed to be greater for larger J while M{sub {infinity}} remained constant. Jet trajectories derived independently using the maxima of each of these two velocity components are not identical, but show increasing jet penetration for larger J. Similarity in the normalized velocity field was found for constant J at two different transonic M{sub {infinity}}, but at two lower M{sub {infinity}} the jet appeared to interact with the wall boundary layer and data did not collapse. The magnitude and width of the peak in the vertical velocity component both increase with J, suggesting that the strength and size of the counter-rotating vortex pair increase and, thus, may have a stronger influence on aerodynamic surfaces despite further jet penetration from the wall.