Inherent and model-form uncertainty analysis for CFD simulation of synthetic jet actuators

"A mixed aleatory (inherent) and epistemic (model-form) uncertainty quantification (UQ) analysis method was applied to a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling problem of synthetic jet actuators. A test case, (Case 3, flow over a hump model with synthetic jet actuator control) from the CFDVAL2004 workshop was selected to apply the Second-Order Probability framework implemented with a stochastic response surface obtained from Quadrature-Based Non-Intrusive Polynomial Chaos (NIPC). Three uncertainty sources were considered: (1) epistemic uncertainty in turbulence model, (2) aleatory uncertainty in free stream velocity and (3) aleatory uncertainty in actuation frequency. Uncertainties in both long-time averaged and phase averaged quantities were quantified using a fourth order polynomial chaos expansion (PCE). Results were compared with experimental data available. A global sensitivity analysis with Sobol indices was utilized to rank the importance of each uncertainty source to the overall output uncertainty. The results indicated that for the long-time averaged separation bubble size, the uncertainty in turbulence model had a dominant contribution, which was also observed in the long-time averaged skin friction coefficients at three selected locations. For long-time averaged pressure coefficient, the contributions from free stream velocity and turbulence model are depending on the locations. The mixed UQ results for phase averaged x-velocity distributions at three selected locations showed that the 95% confidence intervals (CI) could generally envelope the experimental data. The Sobol indices showed that near the wall, the turbulence model had a main influence on the x-velocity, while approaching the main stream, the uncertainty in free stream velocity became a larger contributor. The uncertainty in frequency was found to have a very small contribution to both long-time averaged and phase averaged quantities with the range of variance considered"--Abstract, page iii.