Effectiveness of active flow control for turbulent skin friction drag reduction

The effectiveness of the opposition control method proposed by Choi et al. [J. Fluid Mech. 262, 75 (1994)] has been studied using direct numerical simulations. In this study, the effects of the amplitude and the phase of wall blowing and suction control input were considered separately. It is found that the amplitude of wall blowing and suction as well as the detection plane location played an important role in active control for skin-friction drag reduction. By changing the amplitude, a substantial drag reduction was achieved for all detection plane locations considered, and the efficiency of the opposition control was also improved. When the control was effective, the drag reduction was proportional to the wall blowing and suction strength. There existed a maximum wall blowing and suction strength, beyond which the opposition control became less effective or even unstable. Turbulence characteristics affected by various wall blowing and suction parameters were analyzed to understand the underlying mechanisms for drag reduction. The wall-normal velocity and vorticity fluctuations showed a strong correlation with drag reduction. © 2011 American Institute of Physics