Analysis of the two-way interactions between an actuating line and a body-meshed end-plate*

Actuator Line Methods (ALM) have been successfully used in the wind energy sector and rotorcrafts for performance prediction of open rotor geometries. However, their applicability to ducted fan geometries, in which the end points of the actuating line are in close proximity to the solid duct, is still to be explored. The potential (inviscid) and viscous interactions of the duct on the line, and of the line on the duct are of interest. To explore this problem, we consider in this work a three-dimensional finite-span wing equipped with attached end-plates and detached end-plates at different spacings. The lifting wing is modelled with an actuator line at different discretizations and different non-isotropic Gaussian kernel parameters. The results are compared to the wall-resolved simulations of Villeneuve, Boudreau & Dumas (2019) for the same geometries. The physical analysis is carried out on the basis of the vorticity structures and dynamics, and on the spanwise loading of the wing.