Turbulence Simulation for Shock Wave / Boundary-Layer Interaction

The proposed research aims to answer the preliminary research question "How can hybrid modelling best be utilised to most accurately model shock wave / boundary-layer interactions on high-speed aircraft?"

Understanding the mechanics and effects of shock wave / boundary-layer interactions (SWBLI hereafter) is critical in the design of high-speed aircraft. Knowing how they interact with the fluid environment surrounding them whilst performing manoeuvres at transonic and supersonic speeds is imperative to increasing their stability and efficiency when in that operational envelope of high-speed

manoeuvres. This area of fluid mechanics has far wider ranging applications to be considered after this research, these include external flow over any supersonic body such as missiles or spacecraft and has been shown to be an incredibly important area of study in the designing of any supersonic internal flow such as intakes on these aircraft or on air-breathing missiles such as the HAWC (Hypersonic Air breathing Weapon Concept) missile.

Imperative to gaining further understanding into how these interactions behave in these applications, is the ability to computationally model these scenarios withthe most accurate and reliable methods possible. This project will aim to investigate new methods of turbulence modelling via partially averaged Navier-Stokes Equations.

My research into turbulence modelling for SWBLIs will build upon the wealth of research currently being conducted at the University of Glasgow regarding the work around multiple SWBLIs, implicit CFD methods for SWBLI and numerical simulations of multiple SWBLIs. This work aims to

compliment these studies with enhanced turbulence simulation methods for these studies, whilst still building on overall understandings of how shocks interact with boundary layers at varying speeds and other variable conditions. My work also hopes to work further on earlier works in the laboratory in University of Glasgow, regarding turbulence model development and hybrid scale-resolving simulations.

I plan on utilising the state-of-the-art solver in Glasgow's CFD laboratory (Helicopter Multi-Block 3) to research this new concept of using partial averaging of the Navier-Stokes Equations for turbulence modelling of SWBLIs. These studies look to utilise the high-performance computing cluster available to the lab as well as possible utilisation of the national and international parallel computing accessible by researchers at the university.

This project may also utilise the high-speed facilities at the labs in the University of Glasgow, for the purposes of validating the results created by the hybrid scale-resolving turbulence modelling constructed by this research.