Modal Force Partitioning -- A Method for Determining the Aerodynamic Loads for Decomposed Flow Modes with Application to Aeroacoustic Noise

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel modal force partitioning method that combines flow mode analysis with vortex identification to better interpret aerodynamic loads and noise in complex fluid flows.

Contribution

It develops a new approach applying modal decomposition directly to the Q-field, improving interpretability of flow interactions and extending to aeroacoustic noise analysis.

Findings

Modal decomposition of Q-field yields clearer flow mode insights.

Method applied successfully to 2D and 3D flow cases.

Extended to analyze aeroacoustic noise contributions.

Abstract

Aerodynamic loads play a central role in many fluid dynamics applications, and we present a method for identifying the structures (or modes) in a flow that make dominant contributions to the time-varying aerodynamic loads in a flow. The method results from the combination of the force partitioning method (Menon and Mittal, J. Fluid Mech., 907:A37, 2021) and modal decomposition techniques such as Reynolds decomposition, triple decomposition, and proper orthogonal decomposition, and is applied here to three distinct flows - two-dimensional flows past a circular cylinder and an airfoil, and the three-dimensional flow over a revolving rectangular wing. We show that the force partitioning method applied to modal decomposition of velocity fields results in complex, and difficult to interpret inter-modal interactions. We therefore propose and apply modal decomposition directly to the $Q$-field associated with these flows. The variable $Q$ is a non-linear observable that is typically used to identify vortices in a flow, and we find that the direct decomposition of $Q$ leads to results that are more amenable to interpretation. We also demonstrate that this modal force partitioning can be extended to provide insights into the far-field aeroacoustic loading noise of these flows.