Control of spanwise flow instability of a swept wing by suction

Journal article, 2003

The experimental results on control by disturbances development in a swept wing boundary layer by means of localized and distributed suction are presented. The control by spanwise flow stationary vortices and secondary periodical disturbances generated at late stages of these vortices development was studied. It is shown that the distributed suction is a simple way to suppress the secondary vortex instability of a spanwise flow as compared with a localized suction. It was shown that the localized suction through a small diameter hole may cause generation of additional stationary vortices in the boundary layer. In this case complex nonlinear interactions between both controlled and controlling disturbances take place. The distributed suction effect through a group of holes is similar to the slot suction and it introduces much less disturbances of vorticity into the boundary layer.