Wavelet analysis of transonic buffet on a two-dimensional airfoil with vortex generators

Abstract

We visualized the shock buffets on a two-dimensional transonic airfoil with and without vortex generators (VGs) by using a fast-framing focusing schlieren imaging. The focusing schlieren visualization showed that the flow three-dimensionality around the airfoil became remarkable with installing the VGs. This implies that narrow depth of focus of imaging systems was a key to accurately capture the characteristics of the shock oscillation due to the buffet for the cases with VGs. The time-resolved imaging also revealed that non-periodic components were included in the shock oscillation due to the buffet for the cases with VGs. This prevented Fourier analysis from being applied. We used wavelet analysis to extract the characteristic of the shock oscillation for the cases with VGs. The wavelet spectrograms revealed that the low-frequency oscillation having the buffet frequency was still included intermittently in the shock oscillation even when VG controlled the buffet. The rate of appearing the low-frequency oscillation increased with increasing both the interval between VGs and the angle of attack.