Investigation of a Passive Flow Control Device in an S-Duct Inlet of a Propulsion System With High Subsonic Flow

Abstract

S-Ducts have wide application on air vehicles with embedded engines. The complex geometry is known to lead to separation downstream of curved profiles. This paper reports the influences on that flow of passive flow control geometries. In these experiments, stream-wise tubercles were applied in an effort to improve the internal performance of S-duct diffusers, parameters including pressure recovery, distortion and swirl. The test articles were tested with the high subsonic (Ma = 0.8) flow and were manufactured using 3D printing. Stream-wise static pressure and exit-plane total pressure were measured in a test rig using surface pressure taps and a 5-probe rotating rake, respectively; the baseline and variant S-ducts were simulated through computational fluid dynamics. The experiments showed that some subtle improvements to the S-Duct distortion could be achieved through careful selection of tubercle geometry. Generally, the recovered flow downstream of the inner radius of the second bend of the S-duct deteriorated, but overall pressure recovery improved. The simulations were useful in characterizing swirl, whereas experiments were not so equipped. Adjustments to the numerical approaches resulted in reasonable agreement with the experiments.