Assessment and Modification of the $$\gamma -Re_\theta $$ Transition Model Behavior Outside the Boundary Layer

The behavior of the local correlation-based \(\gamma -Re_\theta \) transition model outside the boundary layer was investigated. It is shown that for perturbed vorticity distributions in the wake the intermittency drops below one. To investigate and quantify this effect, a test case consisting of two NLF(1)-0416 airfoils was simulated imitating a wing tailplane interaction of an aircraft. As a remedy two model modifications are proposed to eliminate the undesired effects. Besides, based on Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes computations a theoretical analyses was performed identifying the stability properties of the original and modified \(\gamma \) equation.