scholarly journals Turbulent structures in a statistically three-dimensional boundary layer

2018 ◽  
Vol 859 ◽  
pp. 543-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Kevin ◽  
Jason Monty ◽  
Nicholas Hutchins

We investigate the behaviour of large-scale coherent structures in a spanwise-heterogeneous turbulent boundary layer, using particle image velocimetry on multiple orthogonal planes. The statistical three-dimensionality is imposed by a herringbone riblet surface, although the key results presented here will be common to many cases of wall turbulence with embedded secondary flows in the form of mean streamwise vortices. Instantaneous velocity fields in the logarithmic layer reveal elongated low-momentum streaks located over the upwash-flow region, where their spanwise spacing is forced by the $2\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}$ periodicity of the herringbone pattern. These streaks largely resemble the turbulence structures that occur naturally (and randomly located) in spanwise-homogeneous smooth-/rough-wall boundary layers, although here they are directly formed by the roughness pattern. In the far outer region, the large spanwise spacing permits the streaks to aggressively meander. The mean secondary flows are the time-averaged artefact of the unsteady and spanwise asymmetric large-scale roll modes that accompany these meandering streaks. Interestingly, this meandering, or instability, gives rise to a pronounced streamwise periodicity (i.e. an alternating coherent pattern) in the spatial statistics, at wavelengths of approximately 4.5$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}$. Overall, the observed behaviours largely resemble the streak-instability model that has been proposed for the buffer region, only here at a much larger scale and at a forced spanwise spacing. This observation further confirms recent observations that such features may occur at an entire hierarchy of scales throughout the turbulent boundary layer.

2019 ◽  
Vol 874 ◽  
pp. 720-755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rishabh Ishar ◽  
Eurika Kaiser ◽  
Marek Morzyński ◽  
Daniel Fernex ◽  
Richard Semaan ◽  
...  

We present the first general metric for attractor overlap (MAO) facilitating an unsupervised comparison of flow data sets. The starting point is two or more attractors, i.e. ensembles of states representing different operating conditions. The proposed metric generalizes the standard Hilbert-space distance between two snapshot-to-snapshot ensembles of two attractors. A reduced-order analysis for big data and many attractors is enabled by coarse graining the snapshots into representative clusters with corresponding centroids and population probabilities. For a large number of attractors, MAO is augmented by proximity maps for the snapshots, the centroids and the attractors, giving scientifically interpretable visual access to the closeness of the states. The coherent structures belonging to the overlap and disjoint states between these attractors are distilled by a few representative centroids. We employ MAO for two quite different actuated flow configurations: a two-dimensional wake with vortices in a narrow frequency range and three-dimensional wall turbulence with a broadband spectrum. In the first application, seven control laws are applied to the fluidic pinball, i.e. the two-dimensional flow around three circular cylinders whose centres form an equilateral triangle pointing in the upstream direction. These seven operating conditions comprise unforced shedding, boat tailing, base bleed, high- and low-frequency forcing as well as two opposing Magnus effects. In the second example, MAO is applied to three-dimensional simulation data from an open-loop drag reduction study of a turbulent boundary layer. The actuation mechanisms of 38 spanwise travelling transversal surface waves are investigated. MAO compares and classifies these actuated flows in agreement with physical intuition. For instance, the first feature coordinate of the attractor proximity map correlates with drag for the fluidic pinball and for the turbulent boundary layer. MAO has a large spectrum of potential applications ranging from a quantitative comparison between numerical simulations and experimental particle-image velocimetry data to the analysis of simulations representing a myriad of different operating conditions.


2009 ◽  
Vol 622 ◽  
pp. 33-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. HUMBLE ◽  
G. E. ELSINGA ◽  
F. SCARANO ◽  
B. W. van OUDHEUSDEN

An experimental study is carried out to investigate the three-dimensional instantaneous structure of an incident shock wave/turbulent boundary layer interaction at Mach 2.1 using tomographic particle image velocimetry. Large-scale coherent motions within the incoming boundary layer are observed, in the form of three-dimensional streamwise-elongated regions of relatively low- and high-speed fluid, similar to what has been reported in other supersonic boundary layers. Three-dimensional vortical structures are found to be associated with the low-speed regions, in a way that can be explained by the hairpin packet model. The instantaneous reflected shock wave pattern is observed to conform to the low- and high-speed regions as they enter the interaction, and its organization may be qualitatively decomposed into streamwise translation and spanwise rippling patterns, in agreement with what has been observed in direct numerical simulations. The results are used to construct a conceptual model of the three-dimensional unsteady flow organization of the interaction.


1965 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. E. Perry ◽  
P. N. Joubert

The purpose of this paper is to provide some possible explantions for certain observed phenomena associated with the mean-velocity profile of a turbulent boundary layer which undergoes a rapid yawing. For the cases considered the yawing is caused by an obstruction attached to the wall upon which the boundary layer is developing. Only incompressible flow is considered.§1 of the paper is concerned with the outer region of the boundary layer and deals with a phenomenon observed by Johnston (1960) who described it with his triangular model for the polar plot of the velocity distribution. This was also observed by Hornung & Joubert (1963). It is shown here by a first-approximation analysis that such a behaviour is mainly a consequence of the geometry of the apparatus used. The analysis also indicates that, for these geometries, the outer part of the boundary-layer profile can be described by a single vector-similarity defect law rather than the vector ‘wall-wake’ model proposed by Coles (1956). The former model agrees well with the experimental results of Hornung & Joubert.In §2, the flow close to the wall is considered. Treating this region as an equilibrium layer and using similarity arguments, a three-dimensional version of the ‘law of the wall’ is derived. This relates the mean-velocity-vector distribution with the pressure-gradient vector and wall-shear-stress vector and explains how the profile skews near the wall. The theory is compared with Hornung & Joubert's experimental results. However at this stage the results are inconclusive because of the lack of a sufficient number of measured quantities.


1994 ◽  
Vol 259 ◽  
pp. 345-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROY Y. Myose ◽  
Ron F. Blackwelder

The dynamics and interaction of turbulent-boundary-layer eddy structures was experimentally emulated. Counter-rotating streamwise vortices and low-speed streaks emulating turbulent-boundary-layer wall eddies were generated by a Görtler instability mechanism. Large-scale motions associated with the outer region of turbulent boundary layer were emulated with — ωzspanwise vortical eddies shed by a periodic non-sinusoidal oscillation of an airfoil. The scales of the resulting eddy structures were comparable to a moderate-Reynolds-number turbulent boundary layer. Results show that the emulated wall-eddy breakdown was triggered by streamwise acceleration associated with the outer region of turbulent boundary layer. This breakdown involved violent mixing between low-speed fluid from the wall eddy and accelerated fluid associated with the outer structure. Although wall eddies can break down autonomously, the presence of and interaction with outer-region — ωzeddies hastened their breakdown. Increasing the — ωzeddy strength resulted in further hastening of the breakdown. Conversely, + ωzeddies were found to delay wall-eddy breakdown locally, with further delays resulting from stronger + ωzeddies. This suggests that the outer region of turbulent boundary layers plays a role in the bursting process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 866 ◽  
pp. 598-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia J. Baker ◽  
Filippo Coletti

We experimentally investigate the two-phase interplay in an open-channel turbulent boundary layer laden with finite-size particles at global volume fractions between 4 and 25 %. The working fluid (water) and the dispersed phase (hydrogel spheres) have closely matched refractive indices, allowing us to measure the properties of both phases using particle image velocimetry and particle tracking velocimetry, respectively. The particles have a diameter of approximately 9 % of the channel depth and are slightly denser than the fluid. The negative buoyancy causes a strong vertical concentration gradient, characterized by discrete and closely spaced particle layers parallel to the wall. Even at the lowest considered volume fractions, the near-wall fluid velocity and velocity gradients are strongly reduced, with large mean shear throughout most of the channel height. This indicates that the local effective viscosity of the suspension is greatly increased due to the friction between particle layers sliding over one another. The particles consistently lag the fluid and leave their footprint on its mean and fluctuating velocity profiles. The turbulent activity is damped near the wall, where the nearly packed particles disrupt and suppress large-scale turbulent fluctuations and redistribute some of the kinetic energy to smaller scales. On the other hand, in the outer region of the flow where the local particle concentration is low, the mean shear produces strong Reynolds stresses, with enhanced sweeps and ejections and frequent swirling events.


2011 ◽  
Vol 673 ◽  
pp. 218-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID J. C. DENNIS ◽  
TIMOTHY B. NICKELS

Three-dimensional (3D) measurements of a turbulent boundary layer have been made using high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) coupled with Taylor's hypothesis, with the objective of characterising the very long streamwise structures that have been observed previously. The measurements show the 3D character of both low- and high-speed structures over very long volumes. The statistics of these structures are considered, as is their relationship to the important turbulence quantities. In particular, the length of the structures and their wall-normal extent have been considered and their relationship to the other components of the velocity fluctuations and the instantaneous stress.


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