Turbulator

A turbulator is a device that turns a laminar flow into a turbulent flow. Turbulent flow can be desired on parts of the surface of an aircraft wing (airfoil) or in industrial applications such as heat exchangers and the mixing of fluids. The term “turbulator” is applied to a variety of applications and is used as a derivative of the word turbulent. However, the word has no commonly accepted technical or scientific meaning. As such, it has been approved as a trademark in the U.S. and other countries in conjunction with machine parts used within rotating drums, sterilizers, heat transfer ovens, mixing and pelletizing machines, and air destratification fans for horticultural and agricultural uses, among others.

When air flows over the wing (an airfoil) of an aircraft, there is a layer of air called the boundary layer between the wing's surface and where the air is undisturbed. Depending on the profile of the wing, the air will often flow smoothly in a thin boundary layer across much of the wing's surface. The boundary layer will be laminar near the leading edge and will become turbulent a certain distance from the leading edge depending on surface roughness and Reynolds Number (speed). However there comes a point, the separation point, in which the boundary layer breaks away from the surface of the wing due to the magnitude of the positive pressure gradient. Beneath the separated layer, bubbles of stagnant air form, creating additional drag because of the lower pressure in the wake behind the separation point.

These bubbles can be reduced or even eliminated by shaping the airfoil to move the separation point downstream or by adding a device, a turbulator that trips the boundary layer into turbulence. The turbulent boundary layer contains more energy, so will delay separation until a greater magnitude of negative pressure gradient is reached, effectively moving the separation point further aft on the airfoil and possibly eliminating separation completely. A consequence of the turbulent boundary layer is increased skin friction relative to a laminar boundary layer, but this is very small compared to the increase in drag associated with separation.

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