Experimental Studies of Open Cavity Configurations at Transonic Speeds with Flow Control

The open cavity configurations at transonic speeds with flow control were examined. The wind tunnel used was a high-speed closed-return facility, with a maximum Mach number of 1.7. The cavity models were four cubic models designed to fit to the access window of the tunnel, with diameter 128 mm. Four different wedge inserts at four different angles of 15, 30, 45, and 60° were manufactured for each cavity model. The flow just outboard of the centerline followed the cavity floor, diverges laterally, and reinforced the forward tornado vortices. The flow even further outboard of the centerline followed the cavity floor upstream for a short distance, turns, and exits from the rear corners. The pressure distribution showed that there was an increase of pressure at the trailing edge of the cavity when the leading edge was tilted. The pressure results showed that when the shear layer impinges on the wedge, slightly higher pressure levels were recorded compared with the no-control case.