Optimal Control of Unsteady Flows Using a Discrete and a Continuous Adjoint Approach

Abstract : While active flow control is an established method for controlling flow separation on vehicles and airfoils, the design of the actuation is often done by trial and error. In this paper, the development of a discrete and a continuous adjoint flow solver for the optimal control of unsteady turbulent flows governed by the incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations is presented. Both approaches are applied to testcases featuring active flow control of the blowing and suction type and are compared in terms of accuracy of the computed gradient.