The subject of the present work is the control of separated and reattaching turbulent flows over obstacles in the form of steps aiming at an enhancement of the mixing capability of the free shear layer and thus a reduction of the size of the recirculation region (afflicted in practice mostly with unfavorable characteristics). The application of passive (no external energy input to the flow) and active (via energy input) control methods is realized in numerical simulations performed by adapting setups from selected wind tunnel experiments. For the passive method, a fence (with a relatively small height compared with the step height) is placed upstream of the step. A periodically oscillating wall jet is utilized for the active method. Results of open-loop or closed-loop (with feedback) controlled Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) are analyzed according to the control success and its dependence on relevant parameters, and with respect to a characterization of method-specific features of the flow physics. In order to validate the LES results, these results are compared with reference data, obtained either from Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) or from experiments. First, both passive and active control methods are applied to the turbulent boundary layer flow over a sharp-edged backward-facing step at Re_h=3000. Differences between the impact of the methods are observed for the mean flow field as well as for the temporal and spatial dynamics of the highly energetic structures. The next part of the work covers the application of closed-loop feedback control LES to the flow over a sharp-edged step, allowing the analysis of certain control parameters. Dependencies and optimum values for a maximum control success can be specified in particular for the distance between the passive control fence and the step (i.e. separation) edge (with given fence height) and for the forcing frequency of the oscillating wall jet. Finally, the impact of both control approaches on a flow over a smoothly contoured step at Re_h=9100 with pressure-induced separation is investigated in the last part of this work. The freely evolving separation line along the curved surface represents an important difference between this flow and the sharp-edged step flow (with geometrically induced separation). Applying the flow control, the size of the recirculation region can not only be reduced, the separation of the turbulent flow can even be avoided totally (with accordingly chosen control parameters).
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