DNS and scaling laws from new symmetry groups of ZPG turbulent boundary layer flow

The Lie group, or symmetry approach, developed by Oberlack (see e.g. Oberlack [26] and references therein) is used to derive new scaling laws for various quantities of a zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer flow. The approach unifies and extends the work done by Oberlack for the mean velocity of stationary parallel turbulent shear flows. From the two-point correlation (TPC) equations the knowledge of the symmetries allows us to derive a variety of invariant solutions (scaling laws) for turbulent flows, one of which is the new exponential mean velocity profile that is found in the mid-wake region of flat-plate boundary layers. Further, a third scaling group was found in the TPC equations for the one-dimensional turbulent boundary layer. This is in contrast to the Navier–Stokes and Euler equations, which have one and two scaling groups, respectively. The present focus is on the exponential law in the outer region of turbulent boundary layer corresponding new scaling laws for one- and two-point correlation functions. A direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a flat plate turbulent boundary layer with zero pressure gradient was performed at two different Reynolds numbers Re=750,2240. The Navier–Stokes equations were numerically solved using a spectral method with up to 140 million grid points. The results of the numerical simulations are compared with the new scaling laws. TPC functions are presented. The numerical simulation shows good agreement with the theoretical results, however only for a limited range of applicability. PACS 02.20.-a, 47.11.+j, 47.27.Nz, 47.27.Eq     

Time-dependent drag reduction and ageing in aqueous solutions of a cationic surfactant

The turbulent pipe flow of a highly dilute aqueous cationic surfactant solution is investigated by means of a pulsed ultrasound Doppler method with special emphasis on the wall boundary layer. The velocity profiles are recorded for several Reynolds numbers at varying ages of the solution. The wall shear stress velocities u _τ used for the normalization of the velocity profiles are determined by fitting the measured profiles to the universal linear velocity profile in the viscous sublayer. The theoretical pressure loss is then calculated from the numerical values of u _τ and compared to the experimental values. Two different scaling methods are discussed for the velocity fluctuations concerning the correlation of the root-mean square values with the effect and the amount of drag reduction. It is shown that outer scaling with the mean velocity is appropriate for the detection of drag reduction in surfactant solutions, rather than inner scaling with the wall shear stress velocity, which is common practice in investigations of 'usual' turbulent flows.     

Turbulent thermal boundary layer on a plate. Reynolds analogy and heat transfer law over the entire range of prandtl numbers

Arational asymptotic theory is proposed,which describes the turbulent dynamic and thermal boundary layer on a flat plate under zero pressure gradient. The fact that the flow depends on a finite number of governing parameters makes it possible to formulate algebraic closure conditions relating the turbulent shear stress and heat flux with the gradients of the averaged velocity and temperature. As a result of constructing an exact asymptotic solution of the boundary layer equations, the known laws of the wall for velocity and temperature, the velocity and temperature defect laws, and the expressions for the skin friction coefficient, Stanton number, and Reynolds analogy factor are obtained. The latter makes it possible to give two new formulations of the temperature defect law, one of which is identical to the velocity defect law and contains neither the Stanton number nor the turbulent Prandtl number, and the second formulation does not contain the skin friction coefficient. The heat transfer law is first obtained in the form of a universal functional relationship between three parameters: the Stanton number, the Reynolds number, and the molecular Prandtl number. The conclusions of the theory agree well with the known experimental data.     

Turbulent natural convection scaling in a vertical channel

Using direct numerical simulation (DNS) data, this study appraises existing scaling laws in literature for turbulent natural convection of air in a differentially heated vertical channel. The present data is validated using past DNS studies, and covers a range of Rayleigh number, Ra between 5.4 × 10⁵ and 2.0 × 10⁷. We then appraise and compare the various scaling laws proposed by Versteegh and Nieuwstadt, 1999, Hölling and Herwig, 2005, Shiri and George, 2008, George and Capp, 1979 with the profiles of the mean temperature defect, mean streamwise velocity, normal velocity fluctuations, temperature fluctuations and Reynolds shear stress. Based on the arguments of an inner (near-wall) and outer (channel centre) region, the data is found to support a minus one-third power law for the mean temperature in an overlap region. Using the inner and outer temperature profiles, an implicit heat transfer equation is obtained and we show that a correction term is non-negligible for the present Ra range when compared with explicit equations found in literature. In addition, we determined that the mean streamwise velocity and normal velocity fluctuations collapse in the inner region when using the outer velocity scale. We also find that the temperature fluctuations scale in inner coordinates, in contrast to the outer scaling behaviour reported in the past. Lastly, we show evidence of an incipient proportional relationship between friction velocity, u_τ, and the outer velocity scale, u_o, with increasing Ra.     

Turbulent heat transfer characteristics of water flow in a rotating pipe

Large-Eddy-Simulation of turbulent heat transfer for water flow in rotating pipe is performed, for various rotation ratios (0 ≤ N ≤ 14). The value of the Reynolds number, based on the bulk velocity and pipe diameter, is Re = 5,500. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of the rotating pipe on the turbulent heat transfer for water flow, as well as the reliability of the LES approach for predicting turbulent heat transfer in water flow. Some predictions for the case of non-rotating pipe are compared to the available results of literature for validation. To depict the influence of the rotation ratio on turbulent heat transfer, many statistical quantities are analyzed (distributions of mean temperature, rms of fluctuating temperature, turbulent heat fluxes, higher-order statistics). Some contours of instantaneous temperature fluctuations are examined.     

Predicting Turbulent Spectra in Drag-reduced Flows

In the present work we describe how turbulent skin-friction drag reduction obtained through near-wall turbulence manipulation modifies the spectral content of turbulent fluctuations and Reynolds shear stress with focus on the largest scales. Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of turbulent channels up to Re _τ = 1000 are performed in which drag reduction is achieved either via artificially removing wall-normal turbulent fluctuations in the vicinity of the wall or via streamwise-travelling waves of spanwise wall velocity. This near-wall turbulence manipulation is shown to modify turbulent spectra in a broad range of scales throughout the whole channel. Above the buffer layer, the observed changes can be predicted, exploiting the vertical shift of the logarithmic portion of the mean streamwise velocity profile, which is a classic performance measure for wall roughness or drag-reducing riblets. A simple model is developed for predicting the large-scale contribution to turbulent fluctuation and Reynolds shear stress spectra in drag-reduced turbulent channels in which a flow control acts at the wall. Any drag-reducing control that successfully interacts with large scales should deviate from the predictions of the present model, making it a useful benchmark for assessing the capability of a control to affect large scales directly.     

Structure of near wall turbulence downstream of a wall mounted protrusion: an interesting Reynolds stress suppression phenomena

A local suppression in the generation of near wall Reynolds stress is achieved by modifying the buffer region and sublayer (y ⁺ <30) of a turbulent pipe flow with a 16.4 wall unit high wall mounted protrusion. Multi-component, multi-point, time resolved laser Doppler velocimetry measurements are made in the undisturbed and modified ARL/PSU glycerin tunnel pipe flow at a Reynolds number of approximately 10000. A downstream converging flow field is produced by the divergence of the approaching mean flow around the protrusion. A pair of counter-rotating vortices, 15 wall units in diameter with common flow down, are generated by the protrusion and also contribute to the wall directed flow convergence. The convergence region is 15 wall units high and more than 100 wall units long and appears to decouple the near wall region from the outer turbulent wall layer. Locally, turbulent velocity fluctuations in the form of Reynolds stress producing events, sweeps and ejections, are retarded within this region. This results in a reduction in near wall uv Reynolds stress and local wall shear. Interestingly, the counter-rotating vortices act to increase turbulent diffusion in a manner which is uncorrelated with Reynolds stress generation.     

The eddy viscosity of turbulent equilibrium layers

Summary Similarity laws for the mean flow and scaling laws for the turbulent motion are used in an attempt to obtain a general expression for the eddy viscosity of equilibrium layers. It is found that =0.09 w ² /w*, in which w ² is a Reynolds stress representative for the region of overlap between the law of the wall and the velocity-defect law, while w* is the logarithmic slope of the mean velocity profile in that region. The distinction between w and w* is related to the strong inhomogeneity of the mean rate of strain in the inner layer. The results of the theory agree with experimental evidence obtained from transpired equilibrium layers.     

A case of strong nonlinearity: Intermittency in highly turbulent flows

It has long been suspected that flows of incompressible fluids at large or infinite Reynolds number (namely at small or zero viscosity) may present finite time singularities. We review briefly the theoretical situation on this point. We discuss the effect of a small viscosity on the self-similar solution to the Euler equations for inviscid fluids. Then we show that single-point records of velocity fluctuations in the Modane wind tunnel display correlations between large velocities and large accelerations in full agreement with scaling laws derived from Leray's equations (1934) for self-similar singular solutions to the fluid equations. Conversely, those experimental velocity–acceleration correlations are contradictory to the Kolmogorov scaling laws.     

二维槽道湍流的标度律分析

对不同Reynolds数的二维不可压槽道湍流（即二维槽道流动的扰动饱和态）进行了标度律分析.指出二维槽道湍流中存在明显的标度律及扩展自相似性;分析了标度指数随着流动Reynolds数的变化,指出随着Reynolds数的增长,标度指数的奇异性并没有减小的趋势;由此推测充分发展的二维槽道湍流的标度指数也是奇异的、将所得计算值和余振苏等人的SL标度律预测值相比较,认为余等人的SL标度律公式能很好描述二维湍流.     

Low Reynolds number effects in open-channel turbulent boundary layers

The present study reports measurements of a turbulent boundary layer in an open-channel flow using fiber-optic laser Doppler anemometry. The Reynolds numbers based on momentum thickness and depth of flow are in the range 750≤Re _θ ≤2,400 and 15,300≤Re _h ≤54,200, respectively. It is shown that an accurate estimate of the wall shear stress can be made by fitting a fifth-order polynomial to the near-wall data. The effect of Reynolds number on the mean turbulence intensity and triple correlation is examined using both conventional scaling laws and the recent scaling laws proposed by George and Castillo. The present results show that different scaling laws lead to different conclusions on low Reynolds number effects.     

Experiments in Turbulent Pipe Flow with Polymer Additives at Maximum Drag Reduction

In this paper we report on (two-component) LDV experiments in a fully developed turbulent pipe flow with a drag-reducing polymer (partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide) dissolved in water. The Reynolds number based on the mean velocity, the pipe diameter and the local viscosity at the wall is approximately 10000. We have used polymer solutions with three different concentrations which have been chosen such that maximum drag reduction occurs. The amount of drag reduction found is 60–70%. Our experimental results are compared with results obtained with water and with a very dilute solution which exhibits only a small amount of drag reduction. We have focused on the observation of turbulence statistics (mean velocities and turbulence intensities) and on the various contributions to the total shear stress. The latter consists of a turbulent, a solvent (viscous) and a polymeric part. The polymers are found to contribute significantly to the total stress. With respect to the mean velocity profile we find a thickening of the buffer layer and an increase in the slope of the logarithmic profile. With respect to the turbulence statistics we find for the streamwise velocity fluctuations an increase of the root mean square at low polymer concentration but a return to values comparable to those for water at higher concentrations. The root mean square of the normal velocity fluctuations shows a strong decrease. Also the Reynolds (turbulent) shear stress and the correlation coefficient between the stream wise and the normal components are drastically reduced over the entire pipe diameter. In all cases the Reynolds stress stays definitely non-zero at maximum drag reduction. The consequence of the drop of the Reynolds stress is a large polymer stress, which can be 60% of the total stress. The kinetic-energy balance of the mean flow shows a large transfer of energy directly to the polymers instead of the route by turbulence. The kinetic energy of the turbulence suggests a possibly negative polymeric dissipation of turbulent energy. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Low-Reynolds-number effects in a turbulent boundary layer

Low-Reynolds-number effects in a zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer have been investigated using a two-component LDV system. The momentum thickness Reynolds number R is in the range 400 to 1320. The wall shear stress is determined from the mean velocity gradient close to the wall, allowing scaling on wall variables of the inner region of the layer to be examined unambiguously. The results indicate that, for the present R range, this scaling is not appropriate. The effect of R on the Reynolds normal and shear stresses is felt within the sublayer. Outside the buffer layer, the mean velocity is more satisfactorily described by a power-law than by a logarithmic distribution.The support of the Australian Research Council is gratefully acknowledged     

On the nature of multitude scalings in decaying isotropic turbulence

We report multitude scaling laws for isotropic fully developed decaying turbulence through group theoretic method employing on the spectral equations both for modelling and without any modelling of nonlinear energy transfer. For modelling, besides the existence of classical power law scalings, an exponential decay of turbulent energy in time is obtained subject to exponentially decaying integral length scale at infinite Reynolds number limit. For the transfer without modelling, at finite Reynolds number, in addition to general power law decay of turbulence intensity with integral length scale growing as a square root of time, an exponential decay of energy in time is explored when integral length scale remains constant. Both the power and exponential decaying laws of energy agree to the theoretical results of George (1992), George and Wang (2009) and experimental results of fractal grid generated turbulence by Hurst and Vassilicos (2007). At infinite Reynolds number limit, a general power law scaling is obtained from which all classical scaling laws are recovered. Further, in this limit, turbulence exhibits a general exponential decaying law of energy with exponential decaying integral length scale depending on two scaling group parameters. The role of symmetry group parameters on turbulence dynamics is discussed in this study.     

Hierarchical structures in a turbulent pipe flow

A hierarchical structure (HS) analysis (β-test and γ-test) is applied to a fully developed turbulent pipe flow. Velocity signals are measured at two cross sections in the pipe and at a series of radial locations from the pipe wall. Particular attention is paid to the variation of turbulent statistics at wall units 10<y⁺<3000. It is shown that at all locations the velocity fluctuations satisfy the She–Leveque hierarchical symmetry (Phys. Rev. Lett. 72 (1994) 336). The measured HS parameters, β and γ, are interpreted in terms of the variation of fluid structures. Intense anisotropic fluid structures generated near the wall appear to be more singular than the most intermittent structures in isotropic turbulence and appear to be more outstanding compared to the background fluctuations; this yields a more intermittent velocity signal with smaller γ and β. As turbulence migrates into the logarithmic region, small-scale motions are generated by an energy cascade and large-scale organized structures emerge which are also less singular than the most intermittent structures of isotropic turbulence. At the center, turbulence is nearly isotropic, and β and γ are close to the 1994 She–Leveque predictions. A transition is observed from the logarithmic region to the center in which γ drops and the large-scale organized structures break down. We speculate that it is due to the growing eddy viscosity effects of widely spread turbulent fluctuations in a similar way as in the breakdown of the Taylor vortices in a turbulent Couette–Taylor flow at high Reynolds numbers.     

A thermodynamic model of turbulent motions in a granular material

This paper is devoted to a thermodynamic theory of granular materials subjected to slow frictional as well as rapid flows with strong collisional interactions. The microstructure of the material is taken into account by considering the solid volume fraction as a basic field. This variable is of a kinematic nature and enters the formulation via the balance law of the configurational momentum, including corresponding contributions to the energy balance, as originally proposed by Goodman and Cowin [1], but modified here. Complemented by constitutive equations, the emerging field equations are postulated to be adequate for motions, be they laminar or turbulent, if the resolved length scales are sufficiently small. On large length scales the sub-grid motion may be interpreted as fluctuations, which manifest themselves in correspondingly filtered equations as correlation products, like in the turbulence theory. We apply an ergodic (Reynolds) filter to these equations and thus deduce averaged equations for the mean motions. The averaged equations comprise balances of mass, linear and configurational momenta, energy, and turbulent kinetic energy as well as turbulent configurational kinetic energy. They are complemented by balance laws for two internal fields, the dissipation rates of the turbulent kinetic energy and of the turbulent configurational kinetic energy. We formulate closure relations for the averages of the laminar constitutive quantities and for the correlation terms by using the rules of material and turbulent objectivity, including equipresence. Many versions of the second law of thermodynamics are known in the literature. We follow the Müller-Liu theory and extend Müllers entropy principle to allow the satisfaction of the second law of thermodynamics for both laminar and turbulent motions. Its exploitation, performed in the spirit of the Müller-Liu theory, delivers restrictions on the dependent constitutive quantities (through the Liu equations) and a residual inequality, from which thermodynamic equilibrium properties are deduced. Finally, linear relationships are proposed for the nonequilibrium closure relations.Received: 21 March 2003, Accepted: 1 September 2003, Published online: 11 February 2004PACS: 05.70.Ln, 61.25.Hq, 61.30.-vCorrespondence to: I. Luca     

A unified theory of turbulent flow

Summary A general theory of turbulent flow is applied to incompressible plane Couette flow. It is found that a unique formulation is not obtained because of a singularity in the equations and problems relating to the boundary conditions. Solutions are obtained for several different assumptions. The characteristic feature is a square root velocity profile for high Reynolds numbers. The logarithmic law is obtained as a divergent approximation. There are discrepancies in the available experimental data; one set agreeing with the square root form, and a second set with the logarithmic form.     

Numerical analysis of turbulent flow in a rotating U-bend with roughened walls

A numerical analysis has been performed for a developing turbulent flow in a rotating U-bend of strong curvature with rib-roughened walls using an anisotropic turbulent model. In this calculation, an algebraic Reynolds stress model is used to precisely predict Reynolds stresses, and a boundary-fitted coordinate system is introduced as a method of coordinate transformation to set the exact boundary conditions along the complicated shape of U-bend with rib-roughened walls. Calculated results for mean velocity and Reynolds stresses are compared to the experimental data in order to validate the proposed numerical method and the algebraic Reynolds stress model. Although agreement is certainly not perfect in all details, the present method can predict characteristic velocity profiles and reproduce the separated flow generated near the outer wall, which is located just downstream of the curved duct. The Reynolds stresses predicted by the proposed turbulent model agree well with the experimental data, except in regions of flow separation.     

On the Lower Critical Reynolds Number for Flow in a Circular Pipe

Flow in a circular pipe is investigated experimentally at Reynolds numbers higher than that at which the resistance coefficients calculated from the Blasius formula for laminar flow and from the Prandtl formula for turbulent flow are equal. The corresponding Reynolds number based on the mean-flow velocity and the pipe diameter is about 1000. The experiments were performed at a high level of inlet pulsations produced by feeding gas into the pipe through a hole with a diameter several times smaller than the pipe diameter. In our experiments the critical Reynolds number was determined as the value, independent of the distance from the inlet, at which the ratio of the axial to the mean-flow velocity as a function of the Reynolds number deviated from 2. At the maximum ratio of the pipe cross-sectional area to the area of the hole through which the gas entered the pipe, equal to 26, the critical Reynolds number was about 2300. After a fivefold increase in the hole area the critical Reynolds number increased by approximately 4%.At Reynolds numbers below 2000, after at a high level of the inlet pulsations an almost laminar flow had developed in the pipe, a perturbation was introduced by inserting a diametrically oriented cylindrical rod with a diameter 10–20 times smaller than the pipe diameter. In these experiments, at Reynolds numbers higher than 1000, at a distance from the rod equal to 50 pipe diameters the axial to mean-flow velocity ratio was less than 2, approaching this value again at large distances from the rod. The insertion of the rod led to a decrease in the critical Reynolds number by approximately 12%.