Numerical simulation of a Rotating Cylinder Gust Generator for Wind Tunnel Application in transonic flow

Abstract

The aim of this project is to investigate the gust generation in a transonic wind tunnel at 0.8 Mach number. Conventionally the gust in the wind tunnel is produced by oscillating biplane vanes mounted on the side walls of wind tunnel, cascade of oscillating airfoils, fixed airfoils with oscillating flap, fixed airfoils with jet flap, airfoil with circulation control etc. These conventional methods of gust generator methods have mechanical complexity to achieve the required sinusoidal lateral and longitudinal gust amplitude over a useful frequency range. This project focuses on relatively new method of gust generation by rotating a cylinder especially slotted cylinder. Overall objective of this work is to study simulation of gust generation using slotted cylinder in the HST tunnel in transonic regime. The numerical investigation is done using DLR TAU code by solving Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) with k-omega-SST turbulence model.