CONTROLLING BOUNDARY LAYER TRANSITION OVER A SEPARATION BUBBLE: A COMPLEX-LAMELLAR APPROACH

In this paper, we develop a complex-lamellar description of the incompressible flow that exists as a boundary layer transitions from a fully developed laminar to fully developed turbulent flow. This complex-lamellar description is coupled to the shape of the universal intermittency distribution and experimental correlations to obtain a boundary layer model of transition. This transition model is used to analyze the effects of several different freestream turbulence levels on the reattachment location and the length of the resulting separation bubbles. Furthermore, we show that at the separation bubble reattachment location, the resulting boundary layer flow is both turbulent and fully developed. Results obtained from this transition model are compared with, and verified by several different DNS simulations.