Simulating and investigating compressible flows interaction with fractal structures Omar Es-Sahli, Adrian Sescu, Mohammed Z. Afsar, and Oliver R.H. Buxton

Previous experimental and numerical studies have investigated incompressible flow interactions with multi-scale fractal structures with the objective of generating turbulence at multiple scales. Depending on various flow conditions, it was found that these fractal structures are able to enhance mixing and scalar transport, and in some cases to contribute to the reduction of flow generated sound in certain frequency ranges. The interaction of compressible flows with multi-scale fractal structures did not receive much attention as the focus was entirely on the incompressible regime. The objective of this study is to conduct large eddy simulations of flow interactions with various fractal structures in the compressible regime and to extract and analyze different flow statistics in an attempt to determine the effect of compressibility. Immersed boundary methods will be employed to overcome the difficulty of modeling the fractal structures, with adequate mesh resolution around small features of the fractal shapes.