scholarly journals Spectral derivation of the classic laws of wall-bounded turbulent flows

Author(s):  
Gustavo Gioia ◽  
Pinaki Chakraborty

We show that the classic laws of the mean-velocity profiles (MVPs) of wall-bounded turbulent flows—the ‘law of the wall,’ the ‘defect law’ and the ‘log law’—can be predicated on a sufficient condition with no manifest ties to the MVPs, namely that viscosity and finite turbulent domains have a depressive effect on the spectrum of turbulent energy. We also show that this sufficient condition is consistent with empirical data on the spectrum and may be deemed a general property of the energetics of wall turbulence. Our findings shed new light on the physical origin of the classic laws and their immediate offshoot, Prandtl’s theory of turbulent friction.

2014 ◽  
Vol 757 ◽  
pp. 498-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Zúñiga Zamalloa ◽  
Henry Chi-Hin Ng ◽  
Pinaki Chakraborty ◽  
Gustavo Gioia

AbstractUnlike the classical scaling relations for the mean-velocity profiles of wall-bounded uniform turbulent flows (the law of the wall, the defect law and the log law), which are predicated solely on dimensional analysis and similarity assumptions, scaling relations for the turbulent-energy spectra have been informed by specific models of wall turbulence, notably the attached-eddy hypothesis. In this paper, we use dimensional analysis and similarity assumptions to derive three scaling relations for the turbulent-energy spectra, namely the spectral analogues of the law of the wall, the defect law and the log law. By design, each spectral analogue applies in the same spatial domain as the attendant scaling relation for the mean-velocity profiles: the spectral analogue of the law of the wall in the inner layer, the spectral analogue of the defect law in the outer layer and the spectral analogue of the log law in the overlap layer. In addition, as we are able to show without invoking any model of wall turbulence, each spectral analogue applies in a specific spectral domain (the spectral analogue of the law of the wall in the high-wavenumber spectral domain, where viscosity is active, the spectral analogue of the defect law in the low-wavenumber spectral domain, where viscosity is negligible, and the spectral analogue of the log law in a transitional intermediate-wavenumber spectral domain, which may become sizable only at ultra-high$\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}\mathit{Re}_{\tau }$), with the implication that there exist model-independent one-to-one links between the spatial domains and the spectral domains. We test the spectral analogues using experimental and computational data on pipe flow and channel flow.


2013 ◽  
Vol 718 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. McKeon

AbstractMarusic et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 716, 2013, R3) show the first clear evidence of universal logarithmic scaling emerging naturally (and simultaneously) in the mean velocity and the intensity of the streamwise velocity fluctuations about that mean in canonical turbulent flows near walls. These observations represent a significant advance in understanding of the behaviour of wall turbulence at high Reynolds number, but perhaps the most exciting implication of the experimental results lies in the agreement with the predictions of such scaling from a model introduced by Townsend (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 11, 1961, pp. 97–120), commonly termed the attached eddy hypothesis. The elegantly simple, yet powerful, study by Marusic et al. should spark further investigation of the behaviour of all fluctuating velocity components at high Reynolds numbers and the outstanding predictions of the attached eddy hypothesis.


2000 ◽  
Vol 122 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Kim ◽  
D. L. Rhode

A curvature law of the wall, which determines the mean velocity profile, is analytically derived for near-wall turbulent flows to include strong curved-channel wall curvature effects through a perturbation analysis. The new law allows improved analysis of such flows, and it provides the basis for improved wall function boundary conditions for their computation (CFD), even for strong curvature cases. The improved law is based on the algebraic eddy viscosity and curvature-corrected mixing length concepts, the latter of which is a linear function of the gradient Richardson number. To include the complete Richardson number effects, the local streamline curvature effects in the gradient Richardson number are kept. To overcome the mathematical difficulty of keeping all of these local streamline curvature terms, an innovative nonconstant-parameter perturbation solution technique is successfully applied. [S0098-2202(00)00903-2]


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (34) ◽  
pp. e2111144118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Patrick Griffin ◽  
Lin Fu ◽  
Parviz Moin

In this work, a transformation, which maps the mean velocity profiles of compressible wall-bounded turbulent flows to the incompressible law of the wall, is proposed. Unlike existing approaches, the proposed transformation successfully collapses, without specific tuning, numerical simulation data from fully developed channel and pipe flows, and boundary layers with or without heat transfer. In all these cases, the transformation is successful across the entire inner layer of the boundary layer (including the viscous sublayer, buffer layer, and logarithmic layer), recovers the asymptotically exact near-wall behavior in the viscous sublayer, and is consistent with the near balance of turbulence production and dissipation in the logarithmic region of the boundary layer. The performance of the transformation is verified for compressible wall-bounded flows with edge Mach numbers ranging from 0 to 15 and friction Reynolds numbers ranging from 200 to 2,000. Based on physical arguments, we show that such a general transformation exists for compressible wall-bounded turbulence regardless of the wall thermal condition.


2002 ◽  
Vol 461 ◽  
pp. 61-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. E. PERRY ◽  
IVAN MARUSIC ◽  
M. B. JONES

A new approach to the classic closure problem for turbulent boundary layers is presented. This involves, first, using the well-known mean-flow scaling laws such as the log law of the wall and the law of the wake of Coles (1956) together with the mean continuity and the mean momentum differential and integral equations. The important parameters governing the flow in the general non-equilibrium case are identified and are used for establishing a framework for closure. Initially closure is achieved here empirically and the potential for achieving closure in the future using the wall-wake attached eddy model of Perry & Marusic (1995) is outlined. Comparisons are made with experiments covering adverse-pressure-gradient flows in relaxing and developing states and flows approaching equilibrium sink flow. Mean velocity profiles, total shear stress and Reynolds stress profiles can be computed for different streamwise stations, given an initial upstream mean velocity profile and the streamwise variation of free-stream velocity. The attached eddy model of Perry & Marusic (1995) can then be utilized, with some refinement, to compute the remaining unknown quantities such as Reynolds normal stresses and associated spectra and cross-power spectra in the fully turbulent part of the flow.


Author(s):  
Takanori Nakamura ◽  
Takatsugu Kameda ◽  
Shinsuke Mochizuki

Experiments were performed to investigate the effect of an adverse pressure gradient on the mean velocity and turbulent intensity profiles for an equilibrium boundary layer. The equilibrium boundary layer, which makes self-similar profiles, was constructed using a power law distribution of free stream velocity. The exponent of the law was adjusted to −0.188. The wall shear stress was measured with a drag balance by a floating element. The investigation of the law of the wall and the similarity of the streamwise turbulent intensity profile was made using both a friction velocity and new proposed velocity scale. The velocity scale is derived from the boundary layer equation. The mean velocity gradient profile normalized with the height and the new velocity scale exists the region where the value is almost constant. The turbulent intensity profiles normalized with the friction velocity strongly depend on the nondimensional pressure gradient near the wall. However, by mean of the local velocity scale, the profiles might be achieved to be similar with that of a zero pressure gradient.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1087
Author(s):  
Eslam Reda Lotfy ◽  
Zambri Harun

The inertial sublayer comprises a considerable and critical portion of the turbulent atmospheric boundary layer. The mean windward velocity profile is described comprehensively by the Monin–Obukhov similarity theory, which is equivalent to the logarithmic law of the wall in the wind tunnel boundary layer. Similar logarithmic relations have been recently proposed to correlate turbulent velocity variances with height based on Townsend’s attached-eddy theory. The theory is particularly valid for high Reynolds-number flows, for example, atmospheric flow. However, the correlations have not been thoroughly examined, and a well-established model cannot be reached for all turbulent variances similar to the law of the wall of the mean-velocity. Moreover, the effect of atmospheric thermal condition on Townsend’s model has not been determined. In this research, we examined a dataset of free wind flow under a near-neutral range of atmospheric stability conditions. The results of the mean velocity reproduce the law of the wall with a slope of 2.45 and intercept of −13.5. The turbulent velocity variances were fitted by logarithmic profiles consistent with those in the literature. The windward and crosswind velocity variances obtained the average slopes of −1.3 and −1.7, respectively. The slopes and intercepts generally increased away from the neutral state. Meanwhile, the vertical velocity and temperature variances reached the ground-level values of 1.6 and 7.8, respectively, under the neutral condition. The authors expect this article to be a groundwork for a general model on the vertical profiles of turbulent statistics under all atmospheric stability conditions.


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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 822 ◽  
pp. 186-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuhiko Suga ◽  
Yuka Nakagawa ◽  
Masayuki Kaneda

Spanwise flow field measurements are carried out for turbulent flows in channels with permeable bottom walls by particle image velocimetry (PIV) to understand the effects of the wall permeability on turbulence structure near porous walls. The porous media used are three kinds of foamed ceramics which have the same porosities (0.8) but different permeabilities. The turbulent flow fields in spanwise planes are discussed using instantaneous and statistical measurement data. At a small permeability Reynolds number ($Re_{K}$), low-speed and high-speed streaks, which are similar to those of solid-wall turbulence, are observed near the walls while at a large $Re_{K}$ the observed structure is very different from that of the solid-wall turbulence. It is found that the obtained spanwise scales of the structure can be reasonably correlated with the wall normal distance plus the zero-plane displacement which is estimated from the mean velocity profile. With the distribution profiles of the spanwise streak spacing and integral length scales, the transitional change of the turbulence structure over permeable walls is discussed.


A set of model equations is given to describe the gross features of a statistically steady or 'slowly varying’ inhomogeneous field of turbulence and the mean velocity distribution. The equations are based on the idea that turbulence can be characterized by ‘densities’ which obey nonlinear diffusion equations. The diffusion equations contain terms to describe the convection by the mean flow, the amplification due to interaction with a mean velocity gradient, the dissipation due to the interaction of the turbulence with itself, and the dif­fusion also due to the self interaction. The equations are similar to a set proposed by Kolmo­gorov (1942). It is assumed that both an ‘energy density’ and a ‘vorticity density’ satisfy diffusion equations, and that the self diffusion is described by an eddy viscosity which is a function of the energy and vorticity densities; the eddy viscosity is also assumed to describe the diffu­sion of mean momentum by the turbulent fluctuations. It is shown that with simple and plausible assumptions about the nature of the interaction terms, the equations form a closed set. The appropriate boundary conditions at a solid wall and a turbulent interface, with and without entrainment, are discussed. It is shown that the dimensionless constants which appear in the equations can all be estimated by general arguments. The equations are then found to predict the von Kármán constant in the law of the wall with reasonable accuracy. An analytical solution is given for Couette flow, and the result of a numerical study of plane Poiseuille flow is described. The equations are also applied to free turbulent flows. It is shown that the model equations completely determine the structure of the similarity solutions, with the rate of spread, for instance, determined by the solution of a nonlinear eigenvalue problem. Numerical solutions have been obtained for the two-dimensional wake and jet. The agreement with experiment is good. The solutions have a sharp interface between turbulent and non-turbulent regions and the mean velocity in the turbulent part varies linearly with distance from the interface. The equations are applied qualitatively to the accelerating boundary layer in flow towards a line sink, and the decelerating boundary layer with zero skin friction. In the latter case, the equations predict that the mean velocity should vary near the wall like the 5/3 power of the distance. It is shown that viscosity can be incorporated formally into the model equations and that a structure can be given to the interface between turbulent and non-turbulent parts of the flow.


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