Study of Leading-Edge Dimple Effects on Airfoil Flow Using Tomographic PIV and Temperature Sensitive Paint

Airfoil blades can experience a significant change of angle of attack during operation cycles, which may lead to static or dynamic stall in various applications. It is unclear how elements distributed at the leading edge would affect the aerodynamic performance and stall behaviors. In the present study, a distributed dimples configuration was investigated and compared to a baseline smooth NACA0015 airfoil at low Reynolds numbers. Two- and four-camera, tomographic particle image velocimetry (PIV), and temperature sensitive paint (TSP) techniques were set up to gather flow and surface information near the curved leading-edge surface and to study flow separation. Results suggest that distributed dimples configuration create abrupt separation leading to stall and induce a similar stall compared to the smooth model. However, the stall is induced more abruptly and with different flow patterns. Results show that patterns of separated shear layer at stalled conditions were enhanced by the current configuration. Effect of these structures on the boundary layer transition were also analyzed based on combined tomographic PIV and TSP measurement techniques.