NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) 19980002547: A New Approach for Determining Onset of Transition

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by  NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

206182
NASA GRANT NAG- 1-1876
/t _
<Li.- < .•/ --7-<---•
A NEW APPROACH FOR
DETERMINING ONSET OF TRANSITION
FINAL REPORT
Prepared by
H. A. Hassan
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Post Office Box 7910
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7910

ABSTRACT
The final report consists of three papersl-3 published under this grant. These papers
outline and demonstrate the new method for determining transition onset. The procedure
developed under this grant requires specification of the instability mechanism, i.e., Tollmien-
Schlichting or crossflow, that leads to transition.
1. Warren, E. S. and Hassan, H. A., "An Alternative to the en Method for Determining Onset of
Transition," AIAA Paper 97-0825, January 1997.
2. Warren, E. S. and Hassan, H. A., "A Transition Model for Swept Wing Flows," AIAA Paper
97-2245, June 1997.
3. Warren, E. S. and Hassan, H. A., "A Transition Closure Model for Predicting Transition
Onset," SAE Paper 975502, October 1997.

AIAA 97-0825
An Alternativeto the enMethod for
DeterminingOnset of Transition
E. S. Warren and H. A. Hassan
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC
35th Aerospace Sciences
Meeting & Exhibit
January 6-10,1997/ Reno, NV
For permission to copy or republish, contact the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
370 L'Enfant Promenade, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024
An Alternative to the e Method for Determining
Onset of Transition
E. S. Warren* and H. A. Hassan t
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7910
Abstract
is based on linear stability theory and generally
requires the following steps
A new approach has been developed to determine
the onset of transition. The approach is based on
(i)
a two-equation model similar to those used in the Pre-calculation of mean flow at a large number
study of turbulence. The approach incorporates in- of streamwise locations along the body of inter-
est.
formation from linear stability theory on streamwise
or Tollmien-Schlichting instabilities. The present (ii) At each streamwise station, a local linear sta-
approach has proven to be an inexpensive alterna-
bility analysis is performed. By assumptions
tive to the e_ method for determining the onset of the linear theory, the unsteady disturbances
of transition on a flat plate and airfoil for a vari-
are decomposed into separate normal modes of
ety of Reynolds numbers and freestream intensities.
different frequency. The stability equations are
Further, the method is incorporated into two flow solved for the spatial amplification rate of each
solvers, boundary layer and Navier-Stokes. This
unstable frequency.
made it possible to calculate the laminar, transi-
tional, and turbulent regions in a single computa- (iii)An amplitude ratioforeach frequencyisthen
tion. calculatedby integratingthe spatialamplifi-
cationrateinthe streamwise directionon the
body,i.e.
Introduction
The process of transition from laminar to turbu-
o
lent flow remains one of the most important unsolved
problems in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics. Vir- (iv) The n factor is then determined by taking the
tually all flows of engineering interest transition from maximum of the above quantity at each stream-
wise location.
laminar to turbulent flow. Because transitional flows
are characterized by increased skin friction and heat
The major problem with the e" method is that
transfer, the accurate determination of heating rates
the n factor does not represent the amplitude of a
and drag critically depend upon the ability to pre-
disturbance in the boundary layer but rather an am-
dict the onset and extent of transition. However,
plification ]actor from an unknown amplitude Ao.
no mathematical model exists which can accurately
The amplitude Ao represents the amplitude of a dis-
predict the location of transition under a wide range
turbance of specified frequency at its neutral stabil-
of conditions. Design engineers resort to methods
ity point. Its value is related to the external dis-
which are based on either empirical correlations or
turbance environment through some generally un-
linear stability theory.
known receptivity process. As a consequence, the
The en method is currently the method of choice
value of n which determines transition onset must
for determining transition onset. The method
be correlated to available experimental data. Un-
*Research Assistant, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer- fortunately, the method suffers from the fact that n
ing, Student Member AIAA. isnot constant;moreover,the method isnot useful
tProfessor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Asso-
in predictingtransitiononseton threedimensional
ciate Fellow AIAA.
configurationsespeciallywhen thecrossflowinstabil-
Copyright(_)1997 American Instituteof Aeronautics ityisimportant.l,2 Additionally,thee" method re-
andAstronauticsI,nc.Allrightsreserved. quirestheuseofseveralcomputational toolssuchas
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a boundary layer or Navier-Stokes flow solver to cal- and turbulence fluctuations but the expressions for
culate the mean flow and the linear stability solver #t are quite different because the physics governing
to determine the amplification rateJ. The process them is different.
requires significant input from the designer and gen- The goal stated above has recently been
erally requires substantial knowled_.e of linear sta- accomplished. 4 In that work, a new turbulence
bility concepts. Methods based on the parabolized model was developed based on the exact equations
stability equations 3 (PSE) are being used to deter- governing the variance of velocity (kinetic energy)
mine transition onset but they have not received the and the variance of vorticity (enstrophy). The form
wide acceptance enjoyed by the e" method. Methods of the resulting equations was arrived at without
based on the PSE also require pre-calculation of the making use of the fact that the flow was turbulent.
mean flow and specification of initial conditions such Therefore, the modeled equations apply to flows of
as frequency and disturbance eigenfunctions. Meth- any nature, whether laminar, transitional or turbu-
ods based on linear stability theory only provide an lent. In order to apply the modeled equations it is
estimation of the location of transition and can pro- necessary to specify a "stress-strain relation." In
vide no information about the subsequent turbulent Ref. [4] the set of equations was applied to turbu-
flow. lent flows. This allowed the model constants to be
In this work, a different approach has been devel- determined by comparing with experimental data.
oped which does not require pre-calculation of the The approach followed in this investigation is
mean flow and includes the laminar, transitional, based on the modeled equations of Ref. [4] but with
and turbulent regions in a single computation. The different "stress-strain relations." Further, it is as-
approach employs a two-equation model similar to sumed that the model constants derived in Ref. [4]
that employed in turbulent calculations. It is based remain unchanged.
on the premise that, if a flow quantity can be writ- To show the nature of the new "stress-strain rela-
ten as the sum of a mean and a fluctuating quantity, tions," Eqs. (25) and (27) of Ref. [4] are re-written
then the exact equations that govern the fluctua- as
tions and their averages are identical irrespective of
the nature of the oscillations, i.e., laminar, transi-
D'--t= -uiui Ozj rh _ + (3)
tional or turbulent. Moreover, if it is possible to
model the equations governing the mean energy of
the fluctuations and their rate of decay (or other
0<; oa,/ [o(,,,ri,) (o,,<rb)]
equations) in such a way that one does not appeal to
their nature, then the resulting model equations will
ok
be formally identical. However, the parameters that
appear in the modeled equations will depend on the - 2 Ozi 0_",_'
nature of the fluctuations. As an illustration, let us
assume that we employ a Boussinesq approximation
to model the stresses resulting from the fluctuations,
i.e.
,-,,",",n.pk.
(2) ( Ok0,)%
2_ ou.,k 2
\ pk ] _ cgz,_ S2
2fleridut
where
pk_ 11
where
k "-'
R_ = -_---_, ut = p,
p is the density, Ui is the mean velocity, 6ii is the
n
Kronecker delta and/Jr is the coefficient of viscosity RT = -_, ¢--- wi'w'_,w'i= e.,.&u,., ni = e...&U,.
brought about by the presence of fluctuations. The
form indicated in Eq. (2) is used for both laminar and,
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____u= 3.2Re__3/2 (7)
where Ue is the velocity at the edge of the boundary
Llmdn_r Turbulefl! layer, Re_. is the edge Reynolds number based on
Vl _'k V, _k i
displacement thickness 6", and w is the frequency.
The eddy viscosity resulting from fluctuations in
the laminar region can be modeled by
Il MloBd°eullea¢lnleENquaAtiopnpsroomfmRaotbloinnslofonrStmffOlm_s_ I i] /Le_odeting°f = k = o.o9 (s)
where rt`, is a viscosity time scale. Using the fre-
ExactEqua_onsGovwr_ng Ructuatiot_
i quency of the dominant T-S disturbance, the viscos-
Lamhlat [ TmJnlCtlonaJ Tudoulen!
ity time scale can be modeled in the laminar region
Fluctuatlons I F(Ilnutce_rmJ_ltito,mnat) Fluc_uatmns
as
a
= - (9)
Figure 1: Schematic of modeling objectives in
¢d
present work
where a is a model constant. Within the laminar
region, the representative decay time for the kinetic
energy is modeled as
ft,, = min(f_,, 1) (5)
q = a --S (10)
7"kt b'
Following the work of Robinson and Hassan 5, the
turbulent region time scales are given as
p_/ -exp \u--_-2]j (6)
±z
rkisa representativedecay time forthe kineticen- rm = v(" t`' (11)
ergy and vt isthe kinematic eddy viscosity.The and
closurecoefficientfsorthe model are given inTa-
bleI.
= v___ (12)
As may be seenfrom thegoverningequations,one rh, k
needs tospecifyvtand rk toeffectclosure.Within
The two regions can be combined by using the
the laminar region,thesequantitieswillbe deter-
concept of the intermittency. The intermittency, F
mined basedon resultsoflinearstabilittyheory.The
represents the fraction of time that the flow is tur-
shaded areasofFigure 1illustratteheobjectivesof
bulent. At a given point, the flow is laminar (1 - F)
thecurrentapproach. The diagram shows thatthe
of the time and turbulent F of the time. This allows
exactequationsgovernthefluctuationsregardlessof
the viscosity time scale to be written as a transitional
theirnature,i.e.laminar,transitionalo,rturbulent.
viscosity time scale, i.e.
The stressesarethenmodeled by theBoussinesqap-
proximation foralltypesoffluctuations.The work
r. : (1 - r)r., + rr., (13)
ofRobinson and Hassan s developedexpressionsfor
vtand r_ intheturbulentregion.The currentwork Combining Eqs. 8, 9, and 11 a transitional eddy
developsexpressionsforutand rkinthelaminarand viscosity can be written as
transitionalregions.
For subsonic Mach numbers and regionswhere vt = Ct` ft` k 7-. (14)
crossflowinstabilityisunimportant, the dominant
where
mode ofinstabilitiysthefirstmode ortheTollmien-
Schlichting(T-S) mode. For low speed flows,the r, = (1- F) (a) ÷F (_) (15)
dominant disturbance frequency at breakdown is
and
well predicted by the frequency of the first mode
Its = 1+ F(/., - 1) (16)
disturbance having the maximum amplification rate.
Using the work of Obremski et al.,a Walker 7showed Followinga similarapproach,thetransitionaldecay
that this frequency can be correlated by time forthekineticenergy can be written
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marching procedure but results were found to be in-
1 <1 ,17,
dependent of the choice of the _ profile.
Vk The model constant ais determined in the current
work by comparing with the flat-plate experiments
The intermittency, F, is currently given by the
of Schubauer and Klebanoff 11 and Schubauer and
Narasimha et al.s expression
Skramstad. 12 These classical experiments are well
r(x)= 1 -exp(-A_ 2) (18) documented in the literature and cover a range of
freestream turbulence intensities. The constant is
with correlated as a function of the freestream intensity
= max(x - xt, 0)/A, ,4 = 0.412 (19) a.$
where xt denotes the transition point and A charac-
terizes the extent of transition. For attached flows,
a = 0.0095 - 0.019 Tu + 0.069(Tu) 2 (24)
an experimental correlation between A and xt is
Figures 2 and 3 show the effect of the initial pro-
Rex = 9.0Re°_ 75 (20)
files on the onset of transition by plotting skin fric-
The transition point xt is determined as a part of tion as a function of position along the plate..7(o
the solution procedure and will be discussed along is the location where the solution was started and
with the results. Xt is the location of minimum skin friction. Fig-
ure 2 compares the present approach with the ex-
periment of Ref.[ll], while Figure 3 compares with
Results and Discussion
the Tu = 0.2 experiment of Ref.[12]. Both figures
clearly illustrate that the calculated Xt values are
almost independent of )Co and are well within the
I. Implementation in Boundary Layer Solver
scatter of the experimental results.
The rms amplitude ratio of the velocity distur-
The present model was initially incorporated into
bance can be obtained from the kinetic energy of
the boundary layer code of Harris et al. 9For such a
the fluctuations as
calculation, initial profiles are needed to begin the
marching procedure. For an initial station s along
the surface, the dominant disturbance frequency is A = V_ = It/_7_ + Vt2 + W12
given by Eq. 7. This frequency was then employed V 2 (25)
in the linear stability code of Macaraeg et al.10 to
calculate the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions which For the natural transition process there is a region
make up the velocity disturbance. The velocity dis- of linear growth, followed by a region of non-linear
turbance corresponding to this dominant frequency growth which occurs as the amplitude of the velocity
can written as disturbance becomes sufficiently large. Transition
occurs after the onset of the non-linear growth and
u_ = ui(y) exp [i(as - wt)] + c.c. (21) this non-linear growth continues through the tran-
sitional region. After the non-linear growth region
where a, the complex spatial amplification rate, and the modes which make up the disturbance become
ui(y), the eigenfunction, are determined from the saturated. This saturation of modes characterizes
stability code for the specified frequency. The initial the turbulent region. Figure 4 is a plot of the ampli-
profile of k is then calculated from tude ratio as calculated by the present method for
laminar flow (i.e. F = 0), with ko representing the
k = _1ui,ui, (22) initial amplitude of k. As can be seen from the fig-
ure, the present method does predict the expected
The amplitude of the disturbance was set from the linear, non-linear, and saturated regions.
specified freestream intensity Tu defined as The location of minimum skin friction is com-
monly taken as the onset of transition. In prac-
tice, it is very difficult to determine the minimum
Tu = I00v__k_U_ (23) skin friction point in an evolving calculation. This
can be due to either the transient nature of Navier-
Note that in the laminar region, Eq. 3 does not de- Stokes calculations or due to local oscillations in the
pend on ¢. An initial profile for _ is needed for the skin friction itself as seen in later airfoil results. To
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
alleviatethisproblema,nalternatecriteriawasde-
the upper surface by the location where the laminar
velopedbycomparinwgiththefiatplateresultsI.t
boundary layer began to separate. Figure 8 presents
wasobservetdhatthepresenmt ethodpredictedthe
the results for the Ree = 2x10 e case. Again, the
localskinfrictionminimumatalocationalongthe
present method does a better job of predicting tran-
platewherethemaximum_ _ 9%. Thiscriteria
sition onset. Figure 9 presents the results for the
V
can be stated differently by noting that the "turbu- Rec = 0.6x106 case. As seen from the data and
lent" Reynolds number, RT, can be written in the discussed in Ref. [13], the boundary layer is very
laminar region (F = 0) as close to separation. Computations with the bound-
ary layer code are not able to continue past the sep-
RT = 1 vt (26) aration point.
II. Implementation in Navier-Stokes Solver
Written in this form, RT can be considered a fluc-
tuation l_ynolds number instead of a turbulent
Reynolds number. The location of transition on- The present method has also been incorporated
in a Navier-Stokes solver. This eliminates the need
set, xt, is then determined as the minimum distance
along the surface for which Rr _>1. for obtaining the pressure distribution required by
Using this criteria Figure 5 compares the results boundary layer type methods. Additionally, since
for the present method with the skin friction experi- the Navier-Stokes approach is a time marching
mental data of Ref.[ll]. As seen from the figure, the scheme instead of a spatial marching scheme, speci-
fying initial spatial profiles of k and _ is not possible.
present method does a good job of predicting the
transition onset as well as the transitional and tur- By using the Navier-Stokes approach, the need for
linear stability theory to provide an initial profile is
bulent regions. Results for the present method are
eliminated. Additionally, it is no longer necessary to
summarized in Table 2. As seen from the data, the
specify a pressure distribution.
onset of transition predicted by the current method
compares well with the experimentally observed lo- Figure 5again compares the results for the present
cations. method with the skin friction experimental data of
To determine the validity of the correlation for the Ref.[ll]. As seen from the figure, the Navier-Stokes
model constant, a, the airfoil experiments of Mateer and boundary layer approaches predict the same
et al.13 were considered. The two-dimensional airfoil transition onset location but the Navier-Stokes ap-
shown in Figure 6was used in the experiments over a proach predicts a slightly higher value of the skin
range of angle of attack and Reynolds number. The friction in the transition region.
angle of attack considered was -0.5 ° at Reynolds Figures 7through 9 also compare the skin friction
numbers of 0.6, 2, and 6 million. The Mach number calculated by the present method with the Navier-
was 0.2 and the freestream rms pressure and velocity Stokes approach with experiment and other com-
fluctuation levels were 0.02qoo and 0.005Uoo respec- putations. Figure 7 compares the results for the
tively. Rec = 6x106 case. The present Navier-Stokes ap-
Figures 7 through 9 compare the skin friction re- proach predicts results nearly identical to the bound-
sults for the airfoil with the experimental data and ary layer approach. The peak in skin friction on the
Navier-Stokes predictions of Ref. [13]. The Navier- lower surface is slightly higher than the boundary
Stokes results of Ref. [13] were obtained using the layer approach but both methods predict the onset
ea method and the turbulence model of Menter. z4 of transition much better than the en method. The
The boundary layer results for the present method skin friction in the turbulent region is slightly better
were computed by using the boundary layer code of predicted than the boundary layer approach for the
Harris et al.9 with a pressure distribution obtained upper surface and slightly worse than the bound-
from an Euler solver. The initial profile of k for these ary layer approach for the lower surface. Figure 8
airfoil cases was chosen as the freestream value. presents the results for the Rec = 2x108 case. Again,
Figure 7 compares the results of the present the present Navier-Stokes approach predicts nearly
method for the Rec = 6x10 a case. Better agreement identical transition onset locations when compared
with the experimental data is seen with the transi- with the boundary layer approach. The Navier-
tion onset prediction of the current method when Stokes approach does a slightly better job on the
compared with the prediction of the en method. upper surface but both Navier-Stokes and bound-
For the airfoil results presented, the en method did ary layer approaches over-predict the skin friction for
not predict transition for the upper surface at all. the lower surface in the turbulent region. Figure 9
Transition for the en method was determined on presents the results for the Ree = 0.6z10 e case. For
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