Study of active flow control for a simplified vehicle model using PANS turbulence model

Paper in proceedings, 2012

Flow control has shown a potential in reducing the drag in vehicle aerodynamics. Its effects are highly related to the flow structures, including small ones, and thus accurate predictions of the flow field are needed for numerical investigation. The numerical study reported in the present paper deals with active flow control for a quasi-2D simplified vehicle model by a synthetic jet. A newly developed PANS turbulence model is used, based on the $\zeta-f$ RANS turbulence model. The aim is to validate the performance of this model for the complex flow control problem. Results are compared with previous studies using LES and experimental data, including global flow parameters of Strouhal number, drag coefficients and velocity profiles. The PANS model predicts a drag reduction of 9.8\%, which is close to previous LES results. The velocity profiles predicted by the PANS model agree well with experimental data for both natural and controlled cases. It is found that the PANS model is able to predict the flow control problem well, actually in a way not inferior to the LES method, and can thus be used for further flow control studies in vehicle aerodynamics.