This paper describes the behaviour of a turbulent boundary layer on a smooth, axisymmetric body exposed to an adverse pressure gradient of sufficient strength to cause a short region of mean reverse flow ('separation’). The pressure distribution is tailored such that the boundary layer reattaches and then develops in a nominally zero pressure gradient. Hot-wire and pulsed-wire measurements are presented over the separated region and downstream of reattachment. The response of the turbulence quantities to separation and to reattachment is discussed, with emphasis on the relaxation behaviour after reattachment. Over the separation bubble, the response is characteristic of that seen by other workers: the Reynolds stresses in the inner region are reduced and stress peaks develop away from the wall. At reattachment, the skewness of the fluctuating wall shear stress vanishes, as it is known to do at separation. After reattachment, the outer-layer stresses decay towards levels typical of unperturbed boundary layers. But the inner-layer relaxation is unusual. As the viscous wall stress increases downstream of reattachment, the recovery does not start at the wall and travel outward via the formation of an ‘internal’ layer, the process observed in many other relaxing flows. In fact, the inner layer responds markedly more slowly than the outer layer, even though response times are shortest near the wall. It is concluded that the large-scale, outer structures in the turbulent boundary layer survive the separation process and interfere with the regeneration of Reynolds stresses in the inner region after reattachment. This behaviour continues for at least six bubble lengths (20 boundary-layer thicknesses) after reattachment and is believed to have profound implications for our understanding of the interaction between inner and outer layers in turbulent boundary layers.
