A Wind Tunnel Experiment for Symmetric Wakes in Adverse Pressure Gradients

Kurzfassung

High-lift-systems in modern transport aircraft provide the necessary lift for low-speedoperations, such as take-off and landing. While RANS-based computations yield good results for the wing design in cruise conditions, for high lift at low speed the same level of reliability has not been achieved due to the complexity of the high-lift flows caused by interaction of several challenging flow features. This applies especially to wakes subjected to a strong adverse pressure gradient. With this motivation, a new experimental entry was launched, whose ultimate objective is to create a comprehensive database for validation and improvement of RANS turbulence models as applied to this type of flows. In the present work first results are presented of such an entry started recently at the Technische Universität Braunschweig in the framework of the joint German-Russian project "Wake flows in Adverse Pressure Gradients". A new experimental setup is outlined, which includes a flat plate as wake generator and a symmetrical installation of two thin liner foil pairs imposing a strong adverse pressure gradient in the wake area. Along with this, some results are shown of preliminary 2D and 3D RANS computations used for the aerodynamic design of the experimental flow model. On the other hand, results of the first measurements at the design point are presented and their sensitivity to key setup parameters is discussed.