Time averaged flow over a hydrofoil at high Reynolds number

At high Reynolds number, the flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over a lifting surface is a rich blend of fluid dynamic phenomena. Here, boundary layers formed at the leading edge develop over both the suction and pressure sides of the lifting surface, transition to turbulence, separate near the foil’s trailing edge, combine in the near wake, and eventually form a turbulent far-field wake. The individual elements of this process have been the subject of much prior work. However, controlled experimental investigations of these flow phenomena and their interaction on a lifting surface at Reynolds numbers typical of heavy-lift aircraft wings or full-size ship propellers (chord-based Reynolds numbers, ReC ∼ 107−108) are largely unavilable. This paper presents results from an experimental effort to identify and measure the dominant features of the flow over a two-dimensional hydrofoil at nominal ReC values from near one million to more than 50 million. The experiments were conducted in the US Navy’s William B. Morgan Large Cavitation Channel with a solid-bronze hydrofoil (2.1m chord, 3.0m span, 17 cm maximum thickness) at flow speeds from 0.25 to 18.3m s−1. The foil section, a modified NACA 16 with