Vorticity amplification near the stagnation point of landing gear wheels

The vicinity near the forward stagnation point of landing-gear wheels has been found to support a mechanism for oncoming streams of weak vorticity to collect, grow, and amplify into discrete large-scale vortical structures that then shed with a distinct periodicity. To the authors’ knowledge, such a flow phenomenon has never been reported before for landing gear wheels, which are in essence finite (three-dimensional) cylinders. To gain further insight into this phenomenon, a detailed experimental study has been undertaken employing the hydrogen bubble visualization and Particle Image Velocimetry techniques. A very thin platinum wire, similar to those used in hydrogen bubble visualization applications, was placed upstream of the wheel model to produce two streams of weak vorticity (with opposite sign) that convected toward the model. As the vorticity streams enter the stagnation region of the wheels, significant flow deceleration and vorticity stretching act to collect, grow, and amplify the incoming vorticity streams into large-scale vortical structures. Experiments were performed at a fixed Reynolds number, with a value of 32 500 when defined based on the diameter of the wheel and a value of 21 based on the diameter of the vorticity-generating upstream wire. First, to establish a baseline, the natural flow field (without the presence of an upstream wire) was characterized, where experimentally determined values for the stagnation boundary-layer thickness and the velocity profile along the stagnation streamline were both found to agree with the values provided in the literature for two-dimensional cylinders. Subsequently, the dynamics of vorticity collection, growth, amplification, and shedding were studied. The size, stand-off distance and the shedding frequency of the vortical structures forming near the stagnation region were all found to strongly depend on the impingement location of the inbound vorticity on the wheel. A simple relationship between the non-dimensional characteristic size and the non-dimensional shedding frequency was found to hold over the entire range of locations where vorticity amplification and shedding were observed. Penetration of the vortical structures into the stagnation boundary layer was observed for specific locations of inbound vorticity impingement.