The Impact of Surface Distributed Mass Flux on the Pressure Distribution Over Foil Profiles: A Boundary Element Method Approach

This study presents the results of a new 2D boundary element method (BEM) flow simulation code developed in-house. The purpose of the BEM code is to investigate active fluidic control of a body’s surface pressure distribution (SPD) by surface distributed mass flux (SDMF) – blowing or suction of the ambient fluid through the body surface, where the blowing or suction is not confined to a narrow, uniform jet, but rather can be both broad and have varying strength over its span. A flexible boundary condition implementation allows the simulation of flows over bodies with SDMF, which is novel in a BEM framework. The BEM code is shown to be valid for high Re flows, that are not significantly separated, over foil profiles (primarily the NACA0012 profile). Typical simulation times in this study are under 3s on an Intel Core i7-12700.

Two sensitivity analyses are performed to characterise the SPD behaviour under uniform SDMF: one analysis varies the width, location and amplitude of a uniform SDMF profile, and the second analysis varies the foil profile thickness under a consistent uniform SDMF profile. The impact of superimposing various SDMF profiles is investigated and the surface pressure profile response is found to be non-linear. The impact of various SDMF profiles on the SPD are shown and discussed.