Characterization and Estimation of Three-dimensional Structure in Unforced and Forced Blunt Trailing Edge Wake Flows

Blunt trailing edge airfoils offer structural and aerodynamic advantages in modern wind turbine and aircraft applications. However, penalties are introduced concurrently by vortex shedding at separation. In particular, the adverse effects of increased drag and unsteady loading motivate the development of a control strategy for the blunt trailing edge wake. Closed-loop control is pursued for its potentially greater effectiveness and efficiency, relative to open-loop forcing. Toward this aim, the thesis addresses the need for estimation of the state from limited measurements. The wake of a blunt trailing edge body is investigated experimentally through simultaneous measurements of velocity and the spanwise distribution of fluctuating surface pressure. Passive forcing is implemented with an array of vortex generators that are arranged according to the characteristic wavelength of the dominant small-scale instability. The guiding considerations for the analysis and discussion are physical characterization and the development of estimation strategies based on surface pressure. Joint examination of the measured variables through reduced-order modelling, wavelet analysis, and conditional averaging yields insight regarding the unsteady, three-dimensional nature of the flow. The investigation of forcing is focused upon the influence of the perturbation on the surface pressure and the performance of estimation models in the modified wake. It is found that low-frequency amplitude modulation of the pressure results from variation of both the magnitude of velocity fluctuations and the vortex formation length. The forcing regularizes the shedding in time and space, as evidenced by the attenuated modulation and enhanced spanwise coherence of the amplitude and phase. Examination of this behaviour confirms the connection between amplitude modulation and vortex dislocations in bluff body wakes. Several properties of the estimation approaches hold in general. It is shown that the phase is captured well, while the nonlinear relationship between the pressure and velocity presents a challenge for accurate estimation of the amplitude. Although the small-scale structure remains unobservable from the pressure sensing scheme, the large-scale spanwise variation of the wake is reproduced with equal fidelity by estimation models constructed in two orthogonal planes. The increased organization with forcing results in reduced estimation error, relative to the unforced case.Ph.D