The Effect of the Source Location on the Acoustic Excitation on Laminar-Turbulent Transition on Swept Wing Boundary Layer Available to Purchase

The effect of the source location and the direction of the propagation on the laminar-turbulent transition on swept-wing three-dimensional boundary layers are investigated experimentally. Also the crossflow case is handled in detail. The source for the acoustic excitation is placed in four different locations: in front of the wing, on top of the test section, behind the wing and in front of the wind tunnel. Three different experimental cases (streamwise, crossflow and mixed cases) are examined for each location with two different excitation bands. For the most efficient frequency ranges and the highest sound pressure levels an upstream shift of transition motion between 20%–35% of chord length for streamwise case and between 5%–10% for the crossflow case are observed. While in front of the wing and behind the wing are the most efficient loudspeaker positions in the streamwise case, in the crossflow case the most efficient locations are observed to be in front of the wing and on top of the test section. It is concluded that acoustic sound level plays a more important role in the upstream shift of the transition than the source location and placing the loudspeaker in front of the wind tunnel is not an efficient position. For the crossflow instabilities dominated transition the stationary vortices are clearly seen from the velocity contours obtained by the hot-wire. Secondary instabilities couldn’t be observed in the hot-wire spectra. The surface roughness of the wing that is reduced to 0.25µm does not change the transition location in the crossflow case.