Turbulent Shear Flow Over Surface Mounted Obstacles

1990 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Schofield ◽  
E. Logan

The mean flow field surrounding obstacles attached to a wall under a turbulent boundary layer is analyzed. The analysis concentrates on how major features of the flow are influenced by model geometry and the incident shear flow. Experimental data are analyzed in terms of nondimensionalized variables chosen on the basis that their effect on major flow features can be simply appreciated. The data are restricted to high Reynolds number shear layers thicker than the attached obstacle. The work shows that data from a wide range of flows can be collapsed if appropriate nondimensional scales are used.

1956 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 521-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. V. R. Malkus

In this paper the spatial variations and spectral structure of steady-state turbulent shear flow in channels are investigated without the introduction of empirical parameters. This is made possible by the assumption that the non-linear momentum transport has only stabilizing effects on the mean field of flow. Two constraints on the possible momentum transport are drawn from this assumption: first, that the mean flow will be statistically stable if an Orr-Sommerfeld type equation is satisfied by fluctuations of the mean; second, that the smallest scale of motion that can be present in the spectrum of the momentum transport is the scale of the marginally stable fluctuations of the mean. Within these two constraints, and for a given mass transport, an upper limit is sought for the rate of dissipation of potential energy into heat. Solutions of the stability equation depend upon the shape of the mean velocity profile. In turn, the mean velocity profile depends upon the spatial spectrum of the momentum transport. A variational technique is used to determine that momentum transport spectrum which is both marginally stable and produces a maximum dissipation rate. The resulting spectrum determines the velocity profile and its dependence on the boundary conditions. Past experimental work has disclosed laminar, ‘transitional’, logarithmic and parabolic regions of the velocity profile. Several experimental laws and their accompanying constants relate the extent of these regions to the boundary conditions. The theoretical profile contains each feature and law that is observed. First approximations to the constants are found, and give, in particular, a value for the logarithmic slope (von Kármán's constant) which is within the experimental error. However, the theoretical boundary constant is smaller than the observed value. Turbulent channel flow seems to achieve the extreme state found here, but a more decisive quantitative comparison of theory and experiment requires improvement in the solutions of the classical laminar stability problem.


2001 ◽  
Vol 442 ◽  
pp. 89-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAVIER JIMÉNEZ ◽  
MARKUS UHLMANN ◽  
ALFREDO PINELLI ◽  
GENTA KAWAHARA

The behaviour of turbulent shear flow over a mass-neutral permeable wall is studied numerically. The transpiration is assumed to be proportional to the local pressure fluctuations. It is first shown that the friction coefficient increases by up to 40% over passively porous walls, even for relatively small porosities. This is associated with the presence of large spanwise rollers, originating from a linear instability which is related both to the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability of shear layers, and to the neutral inviscid shear waves of the mean turbulent profile. It is shown that the rollers can be forced by patterned active transpiration through the wall, also leading to a large increase in friction when the phase velocity of the forcing resonates with the linear eigenfunctions mentioned above. Phase-lock averaging of the forced solutions is used to further clarify the flow mechanism. This study is motivated by the control of separation in boundary layers.


Organized structures in turbulent shear flow have been observed both in the laboratory and in the atmosphere and ocean. Recent work on modelling such structures in a temporally developing, horizontally homogeneous turbulent free shear layer (Liu & Merkine 19766) has been extended to the spatially developing mixing layer, there being no available rational transformation between the two nonlinear problems. We consider the kinetic energy development of the mean flow, large-scale structure and finegrained turbulence with a conditional average, supplementing the usual time average, to separate the non-random from the random part of the fluctuations. The integrated form of the energy equations and the accompanying shape assumptions are used to derive ‘ amplitude ’ equations for the mean flow, characterized by the shear layer thickness, the non-random and the random components of flow (which are characterized by their respective energy densities). The closure problem was overcome by the shape assumptions which entered into the interaction integrals: the instability-wavelike large-scale structure was taken to be two-dimensional and the local vertical distribution function was obtained by solving the Rayleigh equation for various local frequencies; the vertical shape of the mean stresses of the fine-grained turbulence was estimated by making use of experimental results; the vertical shapes of the wave-induced stresses were calculated locally from their corresponding equations.


1967 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. M. Phillips

A mechanism is proposed for the manner in which the turbulent components support Reynolds stress in turbulent shear flow. This involves a generalization of Miles's mechanism in which each of the turbulent components interacts with the mean flow to produce an increment of Reynolds stress at the ‘matched layer’ of that particular component. The summation over all the turbulent components leads to an expression for the gradient of the Reynolds stress τ(z) in the turbulence\[ \frac{d\tau}{dz} = {\cal A}\Theta\overline{w^2}\frac{d^2U}{dz^2}, \]where${\cal A}$is a number, Θ the convected integral time scale of thew-velocity fluctuations andU(z) the mean velocity profile. This is consistent with a number of experimental results, and measurements on the mixing layer of a jet indicate thatA= 0·24 in this case. In other flows, it would be expected to be of the same order, though its precise value may vary somewhat from one to another.


1948 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 161 ◽  
Author(s):  
AA Townnsend

To investigate the validity of Kolmogoroff's theory of local isotropy, a series of turbulence measurements have been made in the wake of a circular cylinder, and the results have been compared with the predictions of the theory. Using a cylinder of 0.953 cm. diameter in an air-stream of velocity 1,280 cm. sec.-1, measurements have been made of the mean squares of the spatial derivatives in the mean-stream direction of the three components of the turbulent velocity fluctuation, and also of the skewness and flattening factors of the statistical distributions of these derivatives. Observations were taken at three traverses across the wake, respectively at 80, 120, and 160 cylinder diameters down-stream from the cylinder. Except in the immediate neighbourhood of the wake centre, the turbulent flow is observed to be intermittent, consisting of regions of fully developed turbulent flow separated by comparatively sharp boundaries from regions of almost completely laminar motion. If an "intermittency factor " is introduced to describe this phenomenon, and if inside each turbulent region local isotropy exists, then all the experimental results are consistent with the theory of local isotropy, and in agreement with previous measurements in flows possessing ordinary isotropy. It is concluded that, within the boundaries of the turbulent regions, local isotropy in the sense used by Kolmogoroff exists, and that the theory is applicable to this example of shear flow. The general applicability of the theory to turbulent shear flow at high Reynolds numbers must be considered very probable.


1997 ◽  
Vol 330 ◽  
pp. 307-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. SIMONE ◽  
G.N. COLEMAN ◽  
C. CAMBON

The influence of compressibility upon the structure of homogeneous sheared turbulence is investigated. For the case in which the rate of shear is much larger than the rate of nonlinear interactions of the turbulence, the modification caused by compressibility to the amplification of turbulent kinetic energy by the mean shear is found to be primarily reflected in pressure–strain correlations and related to the anisotropy of the Reynolds stress tensor, rather than in explicit dilatational terms such as the pressure–dilatation correlation or the dilatational dissipation. The central role of a ‘distortion Mach number’ Md =  S[lscr ]/a, where S is the mean strain or shear rate, [lscr ] a lengthscale of energetic structures, and a the sonic speed, is demonstrated. This parameter has appeared in previous rapid-distortion-theory (RDT) and direct-numerical-simulation (DNS) studies; in order to generalize the previous analyses, the quasi-isentropic compressible RDT equations are numerically solved for homogeneous turbulence subjected to spherical (isotropic) compression, one-dimensional (axial) compression and pure shear. For pure-shear flow at finite Mach number, the RDT results display qualitatively different behaviour at large and small non-dimensional times St: when St < 4 the kinetic energy growth rate increases as the distortion Mach number increases; for St > 4 the inverse occurs, which is consistent with the frequently observed tendency for compressibility to stabilize a turbulent shear flow. This ‘crossover’ behaviour, which is not present when the mean distortion is irrotational, is due to the kinematic distortion and the mean-shear-induced linear coupling of the dilatational and solenoidal fields. The relevance of the RDT is illustrated by comparison to the recent DNS results of Sarkar (1995), as well as new DNS data, both of which were obtained by solving the fully nonlinear compressible Navier–Stokes equations. The linear quasi-isentropic RDT and nonlinear non-isentropic DNS solutions are in good general agreement over a wide range of parameters; this agreement gives new insight into the stabilizing and destabilizing effects of compressibility, and reveals the extent to which linear processes are responsible for modifying the structure of compressible turbulence.


1992 ◽  
Vol 241 ◽  
pp. 503-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Tritton

We consider turbulent shear flows in a rotating fluid, with the rotation axis parallel or antiparallel to the mean flow vorticity. It is already known that rotation such that the shear becomes cyclonic is stabilizing (with reference to the non-rotating case), whereas the opposite rotation is destabilizing for low rotation rates and restabilizing for higher. The arguments leading to and quantifying these statement are heuristic. Their status and limitations require clarification. Also, it is useful to formulate them in ways that permit direct comparison of the underlying concepts with experimental data.An extension of a displaced particle analysis, given by Tritton & Davies (1981) indicates changes with the rotation rate of the orientation of the motion directly generated by the shear/Coriolis instability occurring in the destabilized range.The ‘simplified Reynolds stress equations scheme’, proposed by Johnston, Halleen & Lezius (1972), has been reformulated in terms of two angles, representing the orientation of the principal axes of the Reynolds stress tensor (αa) and the orientation of the Reynolds stress generating processes (αb), that are approximately equal according to the scheme. The scheme necessarily fails at large rotation rates because of internal inconsistency, additional to the fact that it is inapplicable to two-dimensional turbulence. However, it has a wide range of potential applicability, which may be tested with experimental data. αa and αb have been evaluated from numerical data for homogeneous shear flow (Bertoglio 1982) and laboratory data for a wake (Witt & Joubert 1985) and a free shear layer (Bidokhti & Tritton 1992). The trends with varying rotation rate are notably similar for the three cases. There is a significant range of near equality of αa and αb. An extension of the scheme, allowing for evolution of the flow, relates to the observation of energy transfer from the turbulence to the mean flow.


2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (6) ◽  
pp. 1205-1209 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. W. van Oudheusden

The relation between the velocity and the enthalpy in steady shear flow is expressed by the Crocco–Busemann relation, which states that for adiabatic conditions the total enthalpy remains constant throughout the shear layer when the Prandtl number is one. The subject of the present Technical Brief is the rational extension of this concept in case the Prandtl number differs from one. The comparison between wall-bounded and free shear flows is studied in particular, as well as the possible application of the concept in turbulent shear flow.


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