Effect of a splitter plate on the dynamics of a vortex pair

An experimental and numerical study was performed to investigate and compare the behavior of a counter-rotating vortex pair and a single vortex in the vicinity of a wall. This analysis is motivated by the theoretical equivalence, in the inviscid limit, between these two configurations. A wind tunnel with two NACA0012 profiles mounted vertically with an optional splitter plate in the center and a stereoscopic particle image velocimetry system was used to experimentally study these interactions. Many significant differences were found between the two configurations, including the growth of the Crow instability in the two vortex configuration, but not in the one vortex/wall configuration. The numerical results re-enforced the experimental results, and emphasized the fundamental physical differences between the two configurations. While modeling a vortex wall system with an image vortex may give correct integral results for loads experienced by blades, this model does not accurately describe the downstream dynamics of the vortex system. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4737878]