Effect of Interaction Strength on Unsteadiness in Turbulent Shock-Wave-Induced Separations

The effect of the interaction strength on the unsteady behavior of a planar shock wave impinging on a low Reynolds turbulent boundary layer is investigated. This is achieved by means of a variation in incident shock angle under otherwise constant flow conditions. In addition, the effect of an order-of-magnitude variation in the Reynolds number is considered. This has been done for equivalent interaction strength, based on a similar probability of occurrence of instantaneous flow separations. The measurement technique employed is two-component planar particle image velocimetry. Common mechanisms for the large-scale reflected-shock unsteadiness are deduced by means of conditional statistics based on the separation bubble height. The results indicate that both upstream and downstream mechanisms are at work, the dominant mechanism depending on the interaction strength. No significant dependence on the Reynolds number was observed for interactions with a similar probability of instantaneous flow separations.