Inner-scaled Helmholtz resonators with grazing turbulent boundary layer flow

TL;DR

This study investigates small-scale Helmholtz resonators tuned to specific wall-pressure fluctuation scales in turbulent boundary layers, demonstrating their ability to modify velocity fluctuations and turbulence energy at targeted scales.

Contribution

It introduces a method for designing minimally intrusive resonators tuned to inner-spectral peaks of wall-pressure, advancing passive flow control techniques.

Findings

Resonators affect streamwise velocity fluctuations within y+ ≈ 25

Increase in turbulence energy at resonance scale

Attenuation of larger-scale turbulence energy by over 20%

Abstract

Response details are presented of small-scale Helmholtz resonators excited by grazing turbulent boundary layer flow. A particular focus lies on scaling of the resonance, in relation to the spatio-temporal characteristics of the near-wall velocity and wall-pressure fluctuations. Resonators are tuned to different portions of the inner-spectral peak of the boundary-layer wall-pressure spectrum, at a spatial scale of $\lambda_x^+ \approx 250$ (or temporal scale of $T^+ \approx 25$). Following this approach, small-scale resonators can be designed with neck-orifice diameters of minimum intrusiveness to the grazing flow. Here we inspect the TBL response by analysing velocity data obtained with hot-wire anemometry and particle image velocimetry measurements. This strategy follows the earlier work by Panton and Miller (J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 526, 800, 1975) in which only the change in resonance frequency, due to the grazing flow turbulence, was examined. Single resonators are examined in a boundary layer flow at $Re_\tau \approx 2\,280$. Two neck-orifice diameters of $d^+ \approx 68$ and 102 are considered, and for each value of $d^+$ three different resonance frequencies are studied (targeting the spatial scale of $\lambda_x^+ \approx 250$, as well as sub- and super-wavelengths). Passive resonance only affects the streamwise velocity fluctuations in the region $y^+ \lesssim 25$, while the vertical velocity fluctuations are seen in a layer up to $y^+ \approx 100$. A narrow-band increase in streamwise turbulence kinetic energy at the resonance scale co-exists with a more than 20% attenuation of lower-frequency (larger scale) energy. Current findings inspire further developments of passive surfaces that utilize the concept of changing the local wall-impedance for boundary-layer flow control, using miniature resonators as a meta-unit.