Passive load control in backward-facing step flow by using chevrons

Abstract

The ability of chevrons at the top edge of a backward-facing step to reduce downstream surface pressure fluctuations is investigated numerically. Three different chevron configurations are compared against a baseline case without chevrons. Low frequency reduction in the surface pressure fluctuations is observed for two of the configurations. The chevrons do not appear to have a significant effect on the flow as the mean reattachment length for all configurations is nearly constant and there is only a small increase in streamwise turbulence for one configuration with the other configurations unchanged.