International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Combined flow and heat transfer measurements of backward facing step

flows under periodic perturbation
Z.Y. Li a, S. Guo a, H.L. Bai b, N. Gao a,⇑
a
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The flow fields and convective heat transfer downstream of a backward facing step (BFS) with a
Received 18 May 2018 ReH ¼ 9630 were investigated using experimental methods. The BFS flow was perturbed using a synthetic
Received in revised form 2 September 2018 jet actuator deployed at the separation point with a range of perturbation frequencies
Accepted 18 October 2018
(f A H=U o ¼ 0:04  0:39) and amplitudes (u0A =U o ¼ 0:3  0:9). The momentum transport across the shear
Available online 31 October 2018
layer appeared to be enhanced by the perturbations, resulting in a shortened recirculation bubble, a
larger curvature in the time-average streamline over the separation bubble and enhanced heat transfer
Keywords:
rate in the attachment and recirculation regions. The distributions of the reattachment length, streamline
Backward facing step
Synthetic jet
curvature, static base pressure, turbulent kinetic energy and convective heat transfer rate all suggested
Active flow control there was a critical perturbation frequency f A H=U o  0:22 where the perturbation frequency matched
Heat transfer the characteristic frequency of the attaching shear layer. Flow changed only slightly with the perturba-
tion amplitude when f A H=U o J0:22 but changed significantly when f A H=U o K0:22.
Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Flow separations over a bluff body, including a backward facing
step (BFS), can be found in many cooling and drying applications
and thus have received a great amount of attentions [1]. Several
unsteady modes were identified in a separated flow, including
shear layer mode, shedding mode and flapping mode [2]. The shear
layer mode refers to the flow structures appear in the shear layer
due to Kelvin–Helmholtz (K-H) instability and has a typical nondi-
mensional frequency of St h ¼ f h=U o ¼ 0:012 [3] near the separation
location. The shear layer structures pair and merge while evolving
downstream forming larger scale structures with a typical fre-
quency of St ¼ fH=U o  0:07 to 0.20 [3–8] and a propagation veloc-
ity of around 0:5U o to 0:65U o over and downstream of the
reattachment region [7]. The merged structure was referred to as
the shedding mode and was linked to an absolutely instability orig-
inated in the central part of the recirculation region in references
[4,5,9]. Beside the shear layer mode and the shedding mode in
the separated flow, evidences revealed that the initial part of the
shear layer over a BFS flapped up and down periodically with a
characteristic frequency one order of magnitude lower than the
shedding frequency [3,7,9–12]. This low frequency flapping motion
was also observed in other separating/re-attaching flows, e.g. flow
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gaonan@dlut.edu.cn (N. Gao).
separated over a bluff body [13,14] and planar offset attaching jet
[15].
The BFS flow can be significantly modified using external per-
turbation such as a synthetic jet actuator, or a zero-net-mass-flux
(ZNMF) jet [30], deployed at the step corner, some of such investi-
gations were tabulated in Table 1. The impact of perturbation on
the BFS flow depends mainly on the perturbation frequency and
amplitude. Flow structures in the initial part of the shear layer
appear to lock-in with the periodic perturbation with a frequency
of St A < 0:8 [18,28], and become more coherent than those in the
unperturbed flow [17,18], resulting in a shortened reattachment
length X r . Chun and Sung [17] argued that the optimal perturba-
tion frequency, the frequency at which X r is reduced most effec-
tively, was the shedding frequency of the unperturbed flow.
However, the optimal frequency scattered, e.g. the optimal St A
was 0.20 to 0.40 [16,17,23–25,31,32] and the optimal St A;h 
0.007 to 0.025 [3,16–18,20,23] (see Table 1) and did not match
the shedding frequency of unperturbed flow (St  0:07  0:20) dis-
cussed above. By now, there was not a generally agreed theory
relating the optimal perturbation frequency to the frequencies of
the unsteady modes in the unperturbed BFS flow, therefore more
experimental work are needed.
The distributions of Reynolds stresses were also modified con-
siderably by the external perturbations and the amount of modifi-
cations were perturbation frequency related. In particular, v 2 along
the shear layer was increased by a factor of 2 to 3 when the flow

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.10.077
0017-9310/Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251 241

Nomenclature

CP coefficient of the static wall pressure, 2P=qU 2o Uo freestream velocity, m=s

Cl momentum ratio of synthetic jet, su02 A =HU o
2
uA synthetic jet velocity, m=s
E electric voltage, Volt u0A root-mean-square value of the synthetic jet velocity in
f frequency, Hz ejection phase, m=s
fA perturbation frequency, Hz u2 ; v 2 ; uv Reynolds streamwise normal, vertical normal and shear
H step height, m stresses, m2 =s2
h heat transfer coefficient, W=m2 K W width of the facility, m
I electric current, Amp
 Xm streamwise location of the maximum Nusselt numbers,
k Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE), u2 þ v 2 =2 m
ka thermal conductivity of air, W=m K Xr attachment length, m
N number of independent samples x; y; z spatial coordinate in the streamwise, vertical and span-
Nu Nusselt number, hH=ka wise directions, m
P static wall pressure, Pa y0:1 ; y0:5 ; y0:95 locations with mean velocity of 0:1U o ; 0:5U o and
q_ conv convective heat transfer rate, W=m2 0:95U o , m
q_ elec Joule heating, W=m2 d thickness of the initial boundary layer, m
q_ rad radiation heat transfer rate, W=m2 d displacement thickness of the initial boundary layer, m
R radius of a circle fitted to a section of streamline, m dx vorticity thickness U o =ðdU=dyÞmax , m
ReH Reynolds number, U o H=m  uncertainty
Reh Reynolds number, U o h=m m kinematic viscosity of air, m2 =s
St Strouhal number, fH=U o q density of air, kg=m3
St A nondimensional perturbation frequency, f A H=U o h momentum thickness of the initial boundary layer, m
St A;h nondimensional perturbation frequency, f A h=U o
Tw temperature of heated steel foil, K subscripts
To freestream temperature, K ;o unperturbed flow
T1 ambient temperature, K ; max maximum
s width of the synthetic jet actuator, m
t time, s
U; V stream-wise and vertical components of the local mean
velocity, m=s

was perturbed at the frequency St A ¼ 0:2 [21,32]; u2 in the near
wall region was increased by a factor of 2 in the flow perturbed
at St A ¼ 0:08 [32]. The differences in the flow field under perturba-
tions of different frequencies suggested different unsteady modes
of the natural flow were excited, and the details of these modes
were not yet clearly understood.
The amplitude of a synthetic jet actuator was usually presented
using the maximum velocity of the actuator, uA;max , or the root
mean square (r.m.s.) value of actuator velocity, u0A . The maximum
synthetic jet velocity was usually less than 0:3U o [19–21,23–
25,32] with the ratio of the oscillatory jet momentum to the


momentum deficit associated with the step, C l ¼ ðs=HÞ u02 2
A =U o ,

Table 1
Frequencies and amplitudes of periodic forcing applied to reattaching flows (flow type: BFS = backward facing step, study type: E = experimental, N = numerical, forcing
2
frequency: St A ¼ f A H=U o ; St A;h ¼ f A h=U o , forcing amplitude: uA;max =maximum synthetic jet velocity, u0A = r.m.s velocity of ejection phase, momentum ratio C l ¼ su02
A =HU o ).
 
Flow ReH Study StA St A;h Optimal Synthetic jet forcing amplitude
 
type type StA St A;h

Bhatacharjee et al., 1986 [16] BFS 26,000 E 0.2–0.4 0.35 (0.007)

Hasan, 1992 [3] BFS 11,000 E 0.136–0.98 (0.003–0.021) 0.436 (0.010)
Chun and Sung, 1996 [17] BFS 13,000– E 65.0 0.25–0.275
33,000 (0.010)
Chun and Sung 1998 [18] BFS 1200 E 0.305–0.955 0.477 (0.025)
Yoshioka et al., 2001 [19] BFS 1800–5500 E 0.04–0.3 0.19 uA;max =U o ¼ 0:3; u0A =U o  0:2; C l  2:3  103
Wengle et al., 2001 [20] BFS 1480, 3000 E K3:64 0.18 (0.012) uA;max =U o ¼ 0:04, C l  1:7  104 & 8:4  105
Dejoan and Leschziner 2004 BFS 3700 N 0.20 (0.096) uA;max =U o ¼ 0:3; u0A =U o  0:2
[21]
Liu et al., 2005 [22] BFS E 0.275 (0.013), 1.5 (0.07)
Henning and King, 2007 [23] BFS 25000 E 0.08–0.52 0.3(0.017) u0A =U o 6 0:1; C l 6 4:0  104
Dahan et al., 2012 [24] BFS 2000 N 0.004–5.0 0.2–0.4 uA;max =U o ¼ 0:1  0:3; u0A =U o  0:07  0:2; C l
 1:5  104  1:4  103
Kapiris and Mathioulakis, BFS 6940 E 0.026–0.23 0.16 uA;max =U o ¼ 0:078; u0A =U o  0:055; C l  3:0  104
2014 [25]
Ma et al., 2015 [26] BFS 20000 E 0.30 (0.020)
Ma et al., 2017 [27] BFS 20000 E 0.165 (0.011)
Berk et al., 2017 [28] BFS 41000 E 0.21–1.98 (0.02–0.21) uA;max =U o ¼ 1:67; u0A =U o  1:19; C l  0:014
Dandois et al., 2007 [29] Hump 28,275 N 0.14(0.007), 1.1(0.057) uA;max =U o ¼ 0:5; u0A =U o ¼ 0:36; C l ¼ 0:01
Current BFS 9630 E 0.04–0.39 (0.0009–0.009) 0.22–0.30 u0A =U o = 0.3, 0.5 & 0.9, C l  3:6  103 , 0.01
(0.005–0.007) & 0.024
242 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251
less than 2:3  103 . Here, s was the width of the synthetic jet actu-
ator. Actuations with large C l were also used to control flow sep-
arations, e.g. C l was 0.01 in Dandois et al. [29] and 0.014 in Berk
et al. [28]. The mean reattachment length X r was found to decrease
as perturbation amplitude increased for St A K0:8 [17,20,23,24].
Henning and King [23] found that X r was particularly sensitive to
the perturbation at the optimal frequency St A ¼ 0:30, where X r
decreased by more than 20% for a small perturbation of
uA;max =U o ¼ 0:02 and did not seem to further decrease when large
amplitude perturbations of uA;max =U o P 0:1 were applied. Perturba-
tion with a low frequency St A K0:08, on the other hand, had a much
smaller impact on X r for a similar amplitude as the decrease in X r
was within 10% in any previous investigation [17,19,23,24].
Reattaching flow downstream of a BFS causes a peak in the con-
vective heat transfer rate near the mean reattachment point where
the turbulent fluctuations are large for both a laminar separation
with ReH ¼ 1200 [33] and a turbulent separation with
ReH ¼ 28; 000 [34]. The peak in the local heat transfer was found
to shift upstream under the periodic perturbation of St A P 0:20
using an array of miniature electromagnetic flaps deployed at the
step corner by Inaoka et al. [33]. In particular, the size of the heat
transfer peak was increased by nearly 20% when the flow was per-
turbed at St A ¼ 0:20 with a perturbation amplitude of ao ¼ 0:05H.
Inaoka et al. [33] examined the effect of perturbation amplitude
ao at only two perturbation frequencies St A ¼ 0:2 and 1.0, and
found the size of the heat transfer peak increased with ao . The
effect of ao was relatively large when ao K0:1H and became small
when ao J0:1H for both frequencies examined. Moreover, Inaoka
Fig. 1. Schematics of (a) the heat transfer and (b) the flow measurement facilities.
et al. [33] measured the flow fields with and without perturbation
using PIV and attributed the heat transfer enhancement to the
large scale coherent structures produced by the perturbation.
However, PIV snapshots were only used for visualization purpose
and turbulence statistics was not analyzed.
Up to now, there has not been a detailed experimental study on
both the convective heat transfer and turbulence statistics of the
periodically perturbed BFS flows. The main objective of the present
investigation is to provide a set of well controlled experimental
results for this simple, yet important, flow so that the mechanism
of heat transfer enhancement could be better understood and com-
putational models can be validated. The responses of the flow field
to perturbations of a range of frequencies and amplitudes were
also used to study the behaviours of the unsteady modes in the
BFS flow. The experimental methodologies are presented in the
next section, followed by the results and discussions and the con-
cluding remarks.
2. Experimental methodologies
The experiments were performed in an open-return wind tun-
nel using a variable speed blower with a 2.2kW motor. The air went
through a diverging section, a settling chamber (900 mm by
900 mm by 750 mm), a 750 mm long contraction section with a
9:1 area ratio and a 300 mm by 300 mm by 1000 mm (width,
height, length) test section, shown in Fig. 1(a). The bottom wall
of the test section has two parts. A 10 mm thick Acrylic plate with
a length of Ls ¼ 300 mm was mounted in the flow direction at the
 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251
exit of contraction section. A 10 mm thick Acrylic plate with a
length of 700 mm was offset 25 mm from the first plate in the ver-
tical direction, so that a step with a height (H) of 25 mm was
formed. The aspect ratio of the step (W=H) was 12, which was large
enough to ensure a two dimensional flow in the central part of the
test section near the mean reattachment point [1]. The plates were
hold in place rigidly using two plexiglas side walls(10 mm thick,
325 mm high, 1000 mm long). The measurements were performed
for a free-stream velocity of U o ¼ 5:7 m=s. The boundary layer was
tripped at x=H ¼ 12 using a 2 mm diameter steel wire. The initial
velocity profile was measured using a single hot-wire probe at
x=H ¼ 1. The boundary layer thickness was d=H ¼ 0:28; the dis-
placement thickness was d =H ¼ 0:038; the momentum thickness
was h=H ¼ 0:023; the shape factor of the boundary layer is
d =h ¼ 1:64, suggesting this was a transitional boundary layer.
The Reynolds number was ReH ¼ 9630 based on jet height and
Reh ¼ 220 based on h. The free stream turbulence intensity was
2.5%. The top and the exit of the test section were open to the
ambient air. Measurements of wall pressure fluctuations with
and without a top wall were compared and the differences were
found to be negligible.
The heat transfer rate from the wall to the jet was measured by
replacing the central part of the bottom wall using an electrically
heated surface similar to Gao et al. [35,36]. The heat transfer sur-
face was a 700 mm by 78 mm (28H by 3.2H) 0:03 mm thick stain-
less steel foil mounted over a 80 mm wide 10 mm deep cavity in
the bottom plate. There were a 1 mm wide gap on each side of
the steel foil which were sealed using tape. One end of the foil
was attached to a rigid aluminum holder and the other end
clamped to another aluminum holder which was attached to a
large free weight to tension the foil. The foil was clamped to the
holders with machined square aluminum bars that were connected
to a regulated DC power supply (ATTEN TPR3020S). A 10 mm thick
styrofoam plate was positioned 10 mm below the foil to form the
closed cavity between the plate and the foil. Following [35,36],
the local heat transfer coefficient computed using
q_ conv q_ elec  q_ rad
h¼ ¼ ;
DT Tw  To
where the local electrical heating was estimated by
IE
q_ elec ¼
A this case, N was 400 and 2000 for St A ¼ 0:04 and 0:35, respectively,
and the local radiation heat transfer from the foil was estimated by


q_ rad ¼ er T 4w  T 41 :
The current through the foil (I) was measured using a meter on
the power supply, while the voltage drop across the foil (E) was
measured using a multi-meter (FLUKE 17B) connected to the
mounts. Here, A was the area of the foil between the mounts.
The freestream temperature, T o , was measured using a type-K ther-
mocouple located in the upper settling chamber with an accuracy
of 0:2  C and was found to be identical to the ambient tempera-
ture T 1 . The foil temperature, T w , was measured using an infrared
pyrometer (HUAYU YLOA200) located approximately 30 cm
directly above the foil and attached to a computer controlled
traversing mechanism. Measurements were performed at the
streamwise location x ¼ H to 10H with a spatial resolution of H
on the centerline of the facility, z=H ¼ 0. The mean foil temperature
at each location was determined by averaging the temperature
from 1000 samples measured at 100 Hz. The target diameter, the
diameter for the circular region on the foil where the pyrometer
evaluated the temperature, was less than 1:5 cm (0:6H). The
pyrometer was calibrated using a blackbody infrared calibrator
(CEM BX350) with an accuracy of 0:5  C. The top of the foil was
243
coated with candle soot black paint with an emissivity e of
0:96  0:01 [35]. The results are presented in terms of Nusselt
number (Nu ¼ hH=ka ) in this paper. Here, ka is the conductivity
of air evaluated using the film temperature (averaged between
the free-stream and the local wall temperatures). The uncertainty
of the Nusselt number was estimated using
 2  2  2
Nu q_ conv
ðT w T 1 Þ
¼ þ
Nu q_ conv Tw  T1
 2    
q_ q_ rad 2 ðT w T 1 Þ 2
¼ elec
þ þ ; ð4Þ
q_ elec q_ rad Tw  T1
following the approach outlined in Coleman and Steele [37]. In pre-
sent study, the uncertainties in q_ elec ; q_ rad and T w  T 1 were less than
4:5%; 1:0% and 4:6%, respectively, for a 95% confidence inter-
val at the location with a minimum T w  T 1 of 12  C, resulting in a
Nu =Nu of 6:5%. Infrared images were also acquired using a FLIR E5
handhold infrared camera to check the lateral uniformity on the foil.
The temperature distributions were uniform from z=H ¼ 1:0 to 1:0
to within experimental uncertainty.
The velocity distributions on the centerline-plane (z ¼ 0) were
characterized using a LaVision 2D particle image velocimetry sys-
tem (PIV). The field of view (FOV) is shown in Fig. 1(b). Droplets
of vegetable oil with a mean particle diameter of 1 lm were used
as tracer particles. These particles are introduced to the diverging
section of the wind tunnel by using a in-house four-nozzle head
droplet generator. A 200 mJ dual head Nd:YAG pulse laser system
(Litron Nano) was used to illuminate the tracer particles. A camera
(Highspeedstar) with 1024  1024 pixel resolution was used to
capture the images. The time interval between two exposures
was 180 ls to allow seed particles to travel approximately 6 pixels
based on the freestream velocity. A total of 2000 image pairs were
acquired at a rate of 50 Hz for the unperturbed flow, 47 Hz for the
flow perturbed at 70 Hz and 49 Hz for other perturbed flow. Differ-
ence sampling frequencies were used to ensure the samplings were
evenly distributed in every phase of the perturbations. The DaVis
8.3 software package was used for image acquisition and post-
ð1Þ
processing. Vectors were computed using image cross correlation
with a 24  24 pixel interrogation windows and a 50% overlap.
The uncertainties for Reynolds stresses were estimated using
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2=N where N was the number of independent samples [38]. In
ð2Þ
resulting in a respective uncertainty of 7:0% and 3:2% for a 95%
confidence level. Uncertainties for the mean velocity as well as ReH
ð3Þ were less than 0:2% for a 95% confidence level [39]. The time-
mean static wall pressure at x=H ¼ 1:0, referred to as the static
base pressure hereafter, was measured using only a pressure trans-
ducer (Omega Engineering PX655) with a resolution of 0:1 Pa and a
1 mm inner diameter pressure tap. The signals from the pressure
transducer were recorded using a PC with NI-6014 data acquisition
card and a Labview routine. The sampling frequency was 4096 Hz
and sampling time was 150 s.
A close cavity (300 mm wide, 300 mm long, 10 mm high) was
formed under the bottom plate using 10 mm thick plexiglas. A
loud-speaker (250 mm diameter, 8 X) was mounted under the cav-
ity. Periodic flow oscillation was achieved from a two dimensional
slot with a width of s ¼ 1 mm at the tip of the step, oriented 45°-
degrees to the free stream. The speaker was driven by a sinusoidal
signal from a digital signal processor (Texas Instruments
TMS320C6713) and amplified by a 150 W power amplifier. The
flow was perturbed at a range of frequencies 10 Hz to 90 Hz, corre-
sponding to St A ¼ 0:04 to 0.39. Different perturbation amplitudes
u0A =U o ¼ 0:3  0:9 were examined for each perturbation frequency,
corresponding to a momentum ratio of C l ¼ 0.0036 to 0.024. The
amplitude u0A was the root-mean-square value of the ejection
244 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251
Fig. 2. Typical voltage signal applied to the speaker amplifier (dashed line) and the
actuator velocity measured using a single hot-wire probe at the centerline of the
slot exit (solid line). The r.m.s. value of actuator velocity in the ejection phase
(shaded area) was used to evaluate the perturbation amplitude, u0A .
phase of the jet velocity (the shaded area in Fig. 2), measured using
a single-wire hot-wire probe at the centerline of the slot with zero
free stream velocity.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. The mean reattachment length, X r
The normalized reattachment length for different perturbation
frequencies and amplitudes (X r =X ro ) are shown in Fig. 3 with the
data from references [17,19,23] included for comparisons. Here,
X r was defined as the location with a 50% forward flow ratio (cf.
[10]) at a height of y ¼ 0:05H. The reattachment length for the
unperturbed flow X ro  4:2H was in agreement with Hudy et al.
[5,12] where the expansion ratio was also less than 1.1. The nor-
malized reattachment length, X r =X ro , was less than unity suggest-
ing recirculation region was shortened in every case agreeing
with those reported in Refs. [17,19,23,24]. The reattachment
lengths of each perturbation amplitude were fitted to a parabolic
profile. The profiles exhibited similar features as X r reached its
Fig. 3. Distributions of the time-averaged reattachment length of the perturbed
flow, X r , normalized using that of the unperturbed flow, X ro , for a perturbation
amplitude of u0A =U o ¼  0.3,  0.5 and M 0.9.
minimum at 0:22KSt A K0:30, agreeing with the reported optimal
perturbation frequency St A  0.20 to 0.40 [16,17,23–25,31,32].
The reattachment length X r decreased significantly when u0A =U o
increased from 0.3 to 0.9 in cases with a low perturbation fre-
quency St A K0:22, in contrast to a smaller decrease in X r in cases
with a high perturbation frequency St A J0:22. It is noted that the
effect of perturbation amplitude on X r in this work was different
to that observed in a Large Eddy Simulation by Dahan et al. [24],
where X r was much more sensitive to u0A in the super-optimal fre-
quency range 0:2KfH=U o K0:4.
3.2. The mean velocity field
The distributions of time-averaged streamwise and vertical
velocities for different perturbation amplitudes (u0A =U o of 0.3, 0.5
and 0.9) and frequencies (St A of 0.04, 0.18 and 0.35) at selected nor-
malized streamwise locations are shown in Fig. 4. The magnitude
of V near x=X r  0:75 was increased by perturbation in every case
suggesting the perturbed flows approached the wall more rapidly
than the unperturbed flow. The increase in the magnitude of V at
x=X r ¼ 0:75 was particularly large in the flow perturbed at the fre-
quency St A ¼ 0:18 and the amount of increase appeared to grow
with the perturbation amplitude. In flows with St A ¼ 0:35, V
remained unchanged at different perturbation amplitudes.
The curvature of the mean flow over the separation bubble can
be better studied using a time-mean streamline passing through a
location x=H ¼ 0:05 and y=H ¼ 1:0 generated using the stream2
routine of Matlab. A section (0:2 6 x=H  2:2) of this streamline
was fitted to a circle of radius R using least square method to
obtain its curvature. The radius R=Ro and the time-mean static wall
pressure measured at x=H ¼ 1:0 for different perturbation frequen-
cies and amplitudes are shown in Fig. 5(a) and (b), respectively.
Here, Ro ¼ 27:5H was the radius for the unperturbed flow and
the coefficient of time-mean base pressure C P is presented in terms
of ðC P  C Po Þ=jC Po j with a pressure coefficient for the unperturbed
flow C Po ¼ 0:15. The distributions of R and C P suggested
St A ¼ 0:22 was the critical perturbation frequency: R and C P both
decreased when St A increased from 0.09 to 0.22 and the decreases
were particularly large from St A ¼ 0:18 to 0.22. Both R and C P
remained relative unchanged (in the case of u0A =U o ¼ 0:3) or
increased gradually (in the cases of u0A =U o P 0:5) when St A
increased from 0.22 to 0.39. The static base pressure obtained in
a Large Eddy Simulation by Dahan et al. [24] showed a similar
trend to the current measurement, though their critical perturba-
tion frequency was slightly larger.
Following Champagne et al. [40], the vertical spreading rate of
the shear layer was studied using the loci of points at which the
mean velocity was equal to 0.1, 0.5 and 0.95 of the free-stream
velocity, y0:1 ; y0:5 and y0:95 , shown in Fig. 6. The streamwise posi-
tions were normalized using X r . In the region x=X r J0:5; y0:95 and
y0:5 in the perturbed flows with St A ¼ 0:04 were much larger than
those in the unperturbed flow while the corresponding changes in
y0:1 were relatively small suggesting the size of the shear layer, par-
ticularly size the lower half y0:5  y0:1 , was increased significantly
by the perturbation. Moreover, the amount of increases in
y0:5  y0:1 grew with the perturbation amplitude. In the flow per-
turbed at St A ¼ 0:18; y0:1 became less than that in the unperturbed
flow in the region x=X r K0:5, suggesting the perturbed shear layer
spread more quickly toward the wall near the separation point.
Furthermore, y0:1 became smaller as u0A =U o increased indicating
the downward spreading rate increased with u0A =U o . In the flow
perturbed at St A ¼ 0:35, the width of the lower half of the shear
layer (y0:5 -y0:1 ) was increased by the perturbation, while the overall
width of the shear layer (y0:95 -y0:1 ) remained relatively constant
implying the impact of perturbation at this frequency was only
 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251 245

Fig. 4. Profiles of the time-averaged (a–c) streamwise and (d–f) vertical velocities of (soild line) the unperturbed flow and perturbed flows with a perturbation amplitude of
u0A =U o ¼ 0:3  0:5 þ 0:9. The perturbation frequency is St A ¼ (a,d) 0:04 (b,e) 0:18 (c,f) 0:35.

Fig. 5. Distributions of (a) the radius of a circle fitted to a section (0:2 6 x=H  2:2) of the streamline passing through x=H ¼ 0:05 and y=H ¼ 1:0 and (b) time-mean static base
pressure measured at x=H ¼ 1:0.

obvious in the lower part of the shear layer. It is also noted that y0:1 closely associated with the position of the lower side of the shear
collapsed reasonably well for all u0A =U o and St A , e.g. y0:1 =H  0:27 layer.
for St A ¼ 0:04 and y0:1 =H  0:32 for St A ¼ 0:35, suggesting the reat- The thickness of the shear layer can be further evaluated using
tachment location X r determined using 50% forward flow ratio was the local vorticity thickness [14], dx ðxÞ ¼ U o =ðdU=dyÞmax , shown in
246 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251
Fig. 6. Distributions of y0:1 ; y0:5 and y0:95 of (dash line) the unperturbed flow and perturbed flows with an amplitude of u0A =U o ¼
is St A ¼ (a) 0:04, (b) 0:18 and (c) 0:35.
Fig. 7. For perturbation with St A ¼ 0:04 (Fig. 7, a), dx for all the
flows increased almost linearly in the region x=X r K1:2, the rate
of increase was larger for perturbation with a larger amplitude,
due largely to the growth of the upper half of the shear layer as
was shown in Fig. 6 (a). When the flow was perturbed at
St A ¼ 0:18 (Fig. 7, b), vorticity thickness was larger for a larger per-
turbation amplitude in the region x=X r K0:5 due to a larger growth
rate in the lower side of the shear layer shown previously in Fig. 6
(b). Vorticity thicknesses in the case of large amplitude, e.g.
u0A =U o ¼ 0:9, were only slightly larger than those for a smaller
amplitude in the region 0:5Kx=X r K0:8; the difference became pro-
nounced again in the region x=X r J0:8, attributed to the growth of
the upper side of the shear layer revealed by the distributions of
y0:5 and y0:95 . The vorticity thicknesses in the flows perturbed with
St A ¼ 0:35 collapsed reasonable well to that of the unperturbed
flow which fitted well to a parabolic profile, as was shown in
Fig. 7(c).
3.3. Reynolds stresses
Fig. 8(a,d,g) show the Reynolds normal stresses (u2 and v 2 ) and
shear stress (uv ) with and without perturbations at St A ¼ 0:04. It
is noted that the scales were different for different stresses. The
Reynolds stresses became larger under perturbations in contrast
to the unperturbed flow and their magnitude increased with
u0A =U o . In particularly, the maximum u2 at x=X r ¼ 1:5 was increased
by a factor of 2 and 4 for u0A =U o ¼ 0:3 and 0.9, respectively (Fig. 8,
a). The large increase in u2 could be associated with a strengthened
Fig. 7. Distributions of the local vorticity thickness for a perturbation frequency of St A ¼ (a) 0:04, (b) 0:18 and (c) 0:35.
0:3  0:5 r 0:9. The perturbation frequency
‘deep breathing’ motion as described in Refs. [4,5,9]. Moreover, u2
also increased in the middle of the recirculation bubble (y=H  0:9
and 0.1 at x=X r  0:5) suggesting the unsteady recirculating flow
also became stronger due to perturbation.
Reynolds stresses were also increased everywhere in the flow
perturbed at St A ¼ 0:18, as shown in Fig. 8(b,e,h). In particular,
the maxima in u2 and v 2 at x=X r ¼ 0:75 were increased by a factor
of 3 and 7, respectively, for u0A =U o ¼ 0:9. The large increase in v 2
was also observed by Yoshioka et al. [19] for a similar St A , and
was attributed to the enhancement of the shear layer structures
by the periodic perturbation. Downstream of the reattachment
location the increases in Reynolds stresses associated with pertur-
bation at St A ¼ 0:18 quickly diminished due to the impact of the
wall on the flow structures. Similar to the case with St A ¼ 0:18, per-
turbations at St A ¼ 0:35 also caused large increases in stresses, par-
ticularly v 2 and uv , due to enhancement of the coherent vortical
structures over the separation region, see Fig. 8(c,f,i). However, the
Reynolds stresses in this case (St A ¼ 0:35) did not vary with u0A =U o
so much as those in the cases with a smaller perturbation fre-
quency suggesting again the generation of vortical structures were
less sensitive to the perturbation amplitude at St A ¼ 0:35.
The effects of perturbation on the turbulence quantities can be
better illustrated using the maximum local stresses, u2 max ; v 2 max
and uv max , shown in Fig. 9. The largest effect of perturbation on
the velocity fluctuation occurred in u2 max at x=X r > 1:0 for
St A ¼ 0:04, associated with the enhanced flapping motion as illus-
trated in the schematic and discussed above. When
St A P 0:18; v 2 max increased significantly, likely the results of the
 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251 247

Fig. 8. Profiles of the Reynolds shear stress (a–c) u2 , (d–f) u2 and (g–i) uv for (solid line) the unperturbed flow and perturbed flows with an amplitude of u0A =U o ¼ 0:3 0:5
0:9. The perturbation frequency is St A ¼ (a,d,g) 0:04, (b,e,h) 0:18 and (c,f,i) 0:35.

enhancement of the vortical structures in the shear layer, as illus-
trated in the schematic.
The distributions of the maximum Turbulent Kinetic Energy
(TKE) in the whole flow field, denoted using kmax where


k ¼ 0:5 u2 þ v 2 , for different perturbation frequencies and ampli-
tudes are shown in Fig. 10 with parabolic profiles fitted to the data.
For any perturbation amplitude, the TKE became largest near
St A  0:22 where the mean flow over the separation bubble had
the largest curvature and the base pressure reached their mini-
mum value, as indicated in Fig. 5. Moreover, when the perturbation
248 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251

Fig. 9. Distributions of the maximum local (a, d, g) Reynolds streamwise stress, (b, e, h) vertical stress and (c, f, i) shear stress for a perturbation frequency of St A ¼ (a–c) 0:04,
(d–f) 0:18 and (g–i) 0:35 for (dashed line) the unperturbed flow and perturbed flows with a perturbation amplitude of u0A =U o ¼ 0:3  0:5 þ 0:9.

frequency was St A K0:22, the maximum TKE increased significantly
with the perturbation amplitude while the increase became grad-
ual for St A J0:22. Similar trends were also observed in the distribu-
tions of X r (Fig. 3) and streamline curvatures (Fig. 5, a).
3.4. Convective heat transfer
The distribution of Nusselt numbers for the unperturbed and
the perturbed flows are shown in Fig. 11 in terms of (a–c) x=H
and (d–f) x=X r . The Nusselt number was initially small in the recir-
culation region in the unperturbed flow and grew to a maximum in
the attachment region x=H  4:5 (or x=X r  1:1), and then
decreased downstream of the reattachment point. When flow
was perturbed at St A ¼ 0:04; Nu increased in the recirculation
region and the amount of enhancement in Nu appeared to increase
with the perturbation amplitude u0A =U o (Fig. 11, d). The changes in
Nu downstream of the attachment location x=X r J1:0 was small
under perturbation of St A ¼ 0:04. On the contrary, heat transfer
was increased everywhere including the regions upstream and
downstream of the reattachment location when the flow was per-
turbed at St A ¼ 0:18 and 0.35 (Fig. 11, e & f). The heat transfer in
the recirculation region x=X r K1:0, appeared to increase with the
perturbation amplitude u0A =U o in flows with St A ¼ 0:18 and 0.35,
where the effect of u0A =U o was more obvious in the case with
St A ¼ 0:18, similar to those observed by Inaoka et al. [33].
The magnitude and location of the maximum Nusselt number,
Numax and X m , for a range of perturbation frequencies and ampli-
tudes are shown in Fig. 12(a) and (b), respectively. Here, the max-
imum local Nusselt number was normalized using that of the
unperturbed flow, Nuo;max . The time-averaged reattachment loca-
 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251
Fig.
10. Distributions of the global maximum turbulent kinetic energy,

k ¼ u2 þ v 2 =2, in the shear layer for different perturbation frequencies and
amplitudes.
tions, X r , were also included in Fig. 12(b) for comparisons. The
maximum local Nusselt number, Numax , increased with St A and
reached a peak at St A  0:22 for every perturbation amplitude
examined here; Numax became smaller when a perturbation fre-
quency of St A > 0:22 was used. The critical perturbation frequency
was again St A ¼ 0:22, in agreement with those found in the distri-
butions of X r (Fig. 3), streamline curvatures R and static base pres-
sure C Po (Fig. 5) and the maximum TKE kmax (Fig. 10).
The maximum local Nusselt number, Numax , became larger
when u0A =U o was increased from 0.3 to 0.5, but appeared to saturate
Fig. 11. Distributions of the Nusselt numbers of  the unperturbed flow and flows perturbed at St A ¼ (a,d) 0:04, (b,e) 0:18 and (c,f) 0:35 and a perturbation amplitude of
u0A =U o ¼  0.3, 4 0.5 and O 0.9. The streamwise positions were normalized using (a–c) H and (d–f) X r .
249
when u0A =U o was further increased to 0.9. The saturation at a large
amplitude could also be observed in the distributions of X r ; R and
C Po . The amount of increase in Numax with amplitude u0A =U o was
particularly large for the low frequency range St A K0:22, where
the location of the heat transfer peak, X m , also decreased signifi-
cantly with u0A =U o . However, the impact of u0A =U o on Numax and
X m became relatively small when the high perturbation frequency
range, St A J0:22. The differences in the sensitivity of heat transfer
to perturbations of different frequency ranges were similar to
those in X r (Fig. 3), R (Fig. 5, a) and kmax (Fig. 10).
3.5. Discussions
The agreement in the critical perturbation frequency St A  0:22
for the distributions of reattachment length X r (Fig. 3), streamline
curvature over the recirculation region R (Fig. 5, a), static base pres-
sure (Fig. 5, b), maximum turbulent kinetic energy kmax (Fig. 10)
and the maximum convective heat transfer Numax (Fig. 12) was
not a coincidence. When perturbed at the critical frequency
St A ¼ 0:22, the shear layer structures appeared to lock-in with
the perturbation and were greatly strengthened by the perturba-
tion, indicated by the large increase in the vertical Reynolds nor-
mal stress at the positions of the shear layer (Fig. 8, d–f). As a
result, the momentum transport across the shear layer was
enhanced, the streamline curvature was increased and the size of
the recirculation bubble was shortened significantly. The heat
transfer near and upstream of the reattachment point was also
enhanced due to an enhanced turbulence level as well as a larger
impingement angle of the reattaching flow.
The results in this paper also showed that X r ; R; kmax and Numax
varied significantly with the perturbation amplitude u0A for pertur-
250 Z.Y. Li et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 130 (2019) 240–251
Fig. 12. Distributions of (a) the maximum Nusselt numbers of the perturbed flows, Numax , normalized by that of the unperturbed flow, Nuo;max and (b) the streamwise
locations of the maximum Nusselt numbers (X m ) for a perturbation amplitude of u0A =U o ¼
black 0.3, blue 0.5 and red 0.9. The symbol . is the streamwise location for the maximum Nusselt number for the unperturbed flow, X mo ; and O is reattachment length for the
unperturbed flow, X ro . (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
bation frequency St A K0:22, but only varied slightly for high pertur-
bation frequency St A J0:22. The difference in the response to per-
turbations of different amplitudes was not reported before to the
authors’ knowledge. The mechanism is not clear by now and more
detailed measurement on the flow dynamics are needed. It is also
noted that the perturbation frequency St A ¼ 0:04 appeared to be a
special case and the responses of the BFS flow were different to
those of other frequencies St A P 0:08. In particular, X r varied
greatly to the changes in u0A (see Fig. 3) while the static base pres-
sure C P remained relatively unchanged (see Fig. 5, b). The maxi-
mum kinetic energy kmax for St A ¼ 0:04 did not follow the trend
of other perturbation frequencies (see Fig. 10). Furthermore, u2
increased significantly when BFS flow was perturbed at
St A ¼ 0:04 (see Fig. 8, a, and Fig. 9, a), suggesting a large variation
in the streamwise velocity near the wall, likely caused by an
greatly enhanced flapping mode of the shear layer.
4. Conclusions
Combined measurements of the flow field and convective heat
transfer rates in BFS flows under perturbations of different fre-
quencies (St A ¼ 0:04  0:35) and amplitudes (u0A =U o ¼ 0:3  0:9)
were performed. The responses of the flow to perturbations were
evaluated using turbulence quantities, reattachment length, static
wall pressure and convective heat transfer rate. The following con-
clusions can be drawn from the results. First, a critical perturbation
frequency St A  0:22 was identified from the responses, agreeing
with the reported optimal perturbation frequency [16,17,23–
25,31,32]. Shear layer structures were enhanced by the perturba-
tion at the critical perturbation frequency, the reattachment length
and the static base pressure were minimized, while the streamline
curvature over the separation bubble, the maximum turbulent
kinetic energy and maximum heat transfer from the heated wall
to the fluid were maximized. Secondly, the results suggested the
BFS flow responded differently to perturbations in different fre-
quency ranges separated by the critical perturbation frequency:
the flow responded significantly to the perturbation amplitude u0A
for St A K0:22, but only slightly for St A J0:22. The mechanism caus-
ing the differences is not clear by now and required detailed flow
investigations in the future.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
0:3,  0:5 and 4 0:9. The dash lines are the reattachment length (X r ) for u0A =U o ¼
Acknowledgement
The research was funded by Natural Science Foundation of
China (91752101, 11572078) and 973 Plan (2014CB744100).
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