Behavior of wake vortices near the ground over a large range of Reynolds numbers

Numerical simulations based on the two-dimensional vorticity-stream function formulation are used to investigate the behavior of wake vortices near the ground over a wide Reynolds number range and to determine the maximum height the primary vortices reach far downstream of the lifting wing. All cases within the studied Reynolds number range (3 · 10² ≤ Re_Γ ≤ 3 · 10⁶) show the separation of boundary layer vorticity from the ground, the formation of vortices in the separation region and one or several rebounds of the primary vortex pair. The amount of circulation produced within the boundary layer shows only minor variations, while an increasing Reynolds number results in an increasing number of generated vortices with decreasing circulation. The minimum altitude of the primary vortex pair increases with a decreasing Reynolds number, while the maximum altitude far downstream does not show a regular dependence on the Reynolds number. For all Reynolds numbers the maximum altitude of the primary vortices far downstream is smaller than 3.1 times their initial spacing. This result is confirmed by theoretical deductions yielding an upper limit for the maximum altitude of the primary vortices after several rebounds.