Modelling of Vortex Generators Within the Integral Boundary-Layer theory

Flow control is broadly investigated and incorporated in a variety of fluid engineering applications including
aeronautical and wind energy industries. One of the most commonly used flow control technique to trim
the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine blades is the use of vortex generators. These passive devices,
meaning that they do not require any active energy, are gaining an increasing interest in this sector
especially due to the trend of increasing wind turbine size and the demand of a better efficiency. Vortex
generators re-energize the flow by mixing the high energy layers in the outer part of the boundary-layer
with the low energy regions near the wall by creating streamwise vortices. This makes the flow more
resistant to separation and will have the positive consequence of lower drag for high angles of attack.
In order to assess and optimize the use of vortex generators, there is a need to accurately model the effect
of vortex generators. In that way, the application of vortex generators can switch from a fix unforeseen
problems mentality towards a mentality where vortex generators are part of a multi-disciplinary design
process and thus fully incorporated in the design phase. This change will become extremely important in
the next generation of wind turbines.
Various computational fluid dynamics methodologies are worked out in literature mainly based on CFD.
Although advances are made in vortex generator modelling with computational fluid dynamic techniques,
these techniques are still very expensive and impractical to use in iterative design processes. In addition to
that, CFD techniques in general are not able to achieve the same accuracy as integral boundary-layer
models for undisturbed flows.1 Based on this statement, it would be of great value to extent integral
boundary-layer codes such that they can analyse the influence of flow mixing devices on airfoil
performance. The value of including vortex generators into the integral boundary-layer theory was already
noticed by Michael Kerho and Brian Kramer2, as presented in their paper in 2003. In order to include the
mixing effect of vortex generators in the XFOIL/ RFOIL code, they modified the boundary-layer formulation.
In particular, Kerho and Kramer2 stated that "the turbulence production in the turbulent boundary-layer
formulation is enhanced by modifying the stress transport formulation using a source term approach.
It is noteworthy that no articles were found that are building on the Kerho-Kramer approach. However,
based on the very preliminary results described in the article, it is believed that further work can be
promising. A lot of work can still be performed to improve their methodology, especially towards the source
term definition. It is expected that the source term needs to be defined depending on the vortex generator
geometry and the boundary-layer properties at the location of the vortex generator. The project proposal
is thus basically to start from their methodology and to improve and continue with their work towards the
modelling of vortex generators into the integral boundary layer theory. This will make it possible to develop
a reliable and still computationally affordable tool that can predict the aerodynamic characteristics of airfoil
designs equipped with this passive flow control technique and will allow to perform parametric studies and
finally integrate vortex generators as part of a multi-disciplinary design process.

Delphine De Tavernier
Under Supervision of D. Baldacchino and C. Simao Ferreira

D. Baldacchino, D. Ragni, et all. Towards integral boundary layer modelling of vane-type vortex generators.
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, (AIAA-2015-3345), June 2015. 45th AIAA Fluid Dynamics
Conference.
2
Michael Kerho and Brian Kramer. Enhanced airfoil design incorporating boundary layer mixing devices. American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, (AIAA-2003-0211), January 2003