Numerical simulation of the airflow near the leading edge and trailing edge of a flat plate

Abstract

In this paper, a full-scale two-dimensional simulation of boundary layer development is carried out on a flat plate base on real experiments. The influence of the trailing edge angle on the flow near the leading edge is investigated. According to the fact that a gap and a backward-facing step may appear in real experiment, a simulation of related flows near the trailing edge is also included in this paper. The results show that adjusting the trailing edge can effectively eliminate the pressure peak at the leading edge, and there is a crosstalk between the flow fields on the upper and lower surfaces of the plate through the gap, which may affect the boundary layer development on the working face. It is expected that the numerical simulation in this paper will provide guidance to the experiments of boundary-layer transition in the future.