Numerical study of the effect of fluid-structural coupling on shock turbulent boundary layer interaction*

The effect of panel flexibility on shock turbulent-boundary-layer interaction (STBLI) is analyzed for an oblique shock impinging on an elastic fixed-fixed panel using high fidelity numerical simulations. The FSI solver couples a body-fitted, wall-modelled LES solver, a non linear dynamic finite element solid solver, and a spring-system analogy mesh deformation solver. The simulations follow previous experiments by Daub et al (2016) in which the Mach number M and oblique shock angle θ were changed to vary the strength of STBLI. Three cases of increasing shock strength are considered. A weakly coupled case of M=4 and θ=15, a moderately coupled case of M=4 and θ=20, and a stronger coupled case at M=3 and θ=17 for which the panel deflection significantly influences the flow field. Results will be presented for simulations accounting for the full spanwise width of the elastic panel, as well as reduced width spanwise periodic simulations.