Flow and Turbulence Modeling and Computation of Shock Buffet Onset for Conventional and Supercritical Airfoils

Flow and turbulence models applied to the problem of shock buffet onset are studied. The accuracy of the interactive boundary layer and the thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations solved with recent upwind techniques using similar transport field equation turbulence models is assessed for standard steady test cases, including conditions having significant shock separation. The two methods are found to compare well in the shock buffet onset region of a supercritical airfoil that involves strong trailing-edge separation. A computational analysis using the interactive-boundary layer has revealed a Reynolds scaling effect in the shock buffet onset of the supercritical airfoil, which compares well with experiment. The methods are next applied to a conventional airfoil. Steady shock-separated computations of the conventional airfoil with the two methods compare well with experiment. Although the interactive boundary layer computations in the shock buffet region compare well with experiment for the conventional airfoil, the thin-layer Navier-Stokes computations do not. These findings are discussed in connection with possible mechanisms important in the onset of shock buffet and the constraints imposed by current numerical modeling techniques.