An Experimental Study of the Flow and Wall Pressure Field Around a Wing-Body Junction

The flow and wall-pressure field around a wing-body junction has been experimentally investigated in a quiet, low-turbulence wind tunnel. Measurements were made along the centerline in front of the wing and along several spanwise locations. The flow field data indicated that the strong adverse pressure gradient on the upstream centerline causes three-dimensional flow separation at approximately one wing thickness upstream and this induced the formation of the horseshoe root vortex which wrapped around the wing and became deeply embedded within the boundary layer. The wall-pressure fluctuations were measured for their spectral content and the data indicate that the effect of the adverse pressure gradient is to increase the low-frequency content of the wall pressure and to decrease the high-frequency content. The wall pressure data in the separated region, which is dominated by the horseshoe vortex, shows a significant increase in the low-frequency content and this characteristic feature prevails around the corner of the wing. The outer edge of the horseshoe vortex is clearly identified by the locus of maximum values of RMS wall pressure.