Separation control on curved boundaries

Flow separation and its characteristics are an important consideration in the field of bluff body aerodynamics. Specifically, the location and slope of the separation, and the size of the re-circulation bubble that forms downstream of the bluff body significantly affect the resulting aerodynamic forces. Recent theories based on dynamical systems (Haller, 2004) have established criteria based on wall-based quantities that identify the location and slope of separation in unsteady flows. In this work, we adapt the closed-loop separation control algorithm proposed by Alam, Liu \& Haller (2006) to curved boundaries, and demonstrate the effectiveness of the same via numerical simulations on the flow past a cylinder in the vortex-shedding regime. Using appropriately placed wall-based actuators that use inputs from shear stress sensors placed between the actuators, we demonstrate that the separation characteristics including the re-circulation bubble length, can be desirably modified.