Coherent structures and riblets

This work deals with the effect of the riblets on the coherent structures near the wall. The emphasis is put on the genesis of the quasi-streamwise vortices in the presence of the riblets. The quasi-streamwise vortices regenerate by the tilting of wall normal vorticity induced by prevailing structures. This requires a mechanism which leads to a temporal streamwise dependence near the elongated flow structures and to a subsequent formation of new wall normal vorticity. It is suggested here that the action of existing quasi-streamwise vortices on the sidewalls of wall normal vorticity may create a local, streamwise dependent spanwise velocity and therefore, a secondary wall normal vorticity field. A preliminary analysis of the set-up and the time and space development of this secondary three-dimensional flow associated with the regeneration mechanism, is given. An attempt is made, in order to explain the drag reduction performed by the riblets through an intermittent model, based on the protrusion height. Logical estimates of the amount of drag reduction are obtained. The differences between the mechanism suggested here and those based on forced control experiments are also discussed.     

Cross-Stream Vorticity Field Induced by Streamwise Vortices in Unbounded and Wall-Bounded Shear Flows

This computational study examines the unsteady cross-stream vorticity structures that form when one or more streamwise vortices are immersed in homogeneous and boundary-layer shear flows. A quasi-two-dimensional limit is considered in which the velocity and vorticity fields, while still possessing three nonzero components, have vanishing gradient in the streamwise direction. This idealization is suitable to applications such as streamwise vortices that occur along a ship hull or airplane fuselage and it can be used as an idealized representation of the quasi-streamwise vortices in the near-wall region of a turbulent boundary layer. In this quasi-two-dimensional idealization, the streamwise velocity has no effect on the cross-stream velocity associated with the vortex. However, the vortex acts to modify the cross-stream vorticity component, resulting in regions of the flow with strong deviations in streamwise velocity. This paper examines the complex structures that form as the cross-stream vorticity field is wrapped up by the vortex and the effect of these structures on the streamwise velocity field, first for vortices immersed in homogeneous shear flow and then for vortices immersed in a boundary layer along a flat wall. Received 2 January 2002 and accepted 13 August 2002 Published online 3 December 2002 RID="*" ID="*" This project was supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grant Number N00014-01-1-0015. Dr. Thomas Swain is the program manager. Communicated by T.B. Gatski     

Vortex stretching and filaments

This paper presents a new technique to produce controlled stretched vortices. Intense elliptical vortices are created by stretching of an initial vorticity sheet. The initial vorticity comes from a laminar boundary layer flow and the stretching is parallel to the vorticity vectors. This low velocity flow enables direct observation of the formation and destabilization of vortices. Visualizations are combined with quasi-instantaneous measurements of a full velocity profile. The velocity profile is obtained with an ultrasonic pulsed Doppler velocimeter. The evolution of the central diameter of the vortices is related to the stretching. It is observed that destabilization occurs by pairing of two vortices, by hairpin deformation, and by breakdown of vortices into a “coil shape”.     

Reynolds stress and vorticity in turbulent wall flows

Experimental measurements in a boundary layer and a large-eddy simulation of plane channel flow have been used to study the dynamics of vorticity and mass transport in the nearwall region. It was found that Reynolds stress generation occurs in the vicinity of quasi-streamwise vortices, and that smoke particles tend to be ejected from the wall near these vortical structures.     

Time resolved flow-field measurements of a turbulent mixing layer over a rectangular cavity

High Reynolds number, low Mach number, turbulent shear flow past a rectangular, shallow cavity has been experimentally investigated with the use of dual-camera cinematographic particle image velocimetry (CPIV). The CPIV had a 3 kHz sampling rate, which was sufficient to monitor the time evolution of large-scale vortices as they formed, evolved downstream and impinged on the downstream cavity wall. The time-averaged flow properties (velocity and vorticity fields, streamwise velocity profiles and momentum and vorticity thickness) were in agreement with previous cavity flow studies under similar operating conditions. The time-resolved results show that the separated shear layer quickly rolled-up and formed eddies immediately downstream of the separation point. The vortices convect downstream at approximately half the free-stream speed. Vorticity strength intermittency as the structures approach the downstream edge suggests an increase in the three-dimensionality of the flow. Time-resolved correlations reveal that the in-plane coherence of the vortices decays within 2–3 structure diameters, and quasi-periodic flow features are present with a vortex passage frequency of ~1 kHz. The power spectra of the vertical velocity fluctuations within the shear layer revealed a peak at a non-dimensional frequency corresponding to that predicted using linear, inviscid instability theory.     

Suppression of embedded shocks in supersonic free-shear-layer structures

Although the suppressed instability of supersonic free shear layer flow has been documented by many investigators, the underlying physics are still ambiguous. In the present study, numerical simulations were performed to cast physical insight into the two-dimensional large-scale structure which is organized in a supersonic free shear layer. It is found that an acoustic interaction of the disturbed shear layer with a flow channel wall or another shear layer is indispensable to generate the organized structure. The undisturbed vorticity layer is deformed into a traveling wavy one. As the flow Mach number increases, its degree of deformation decreases so that the formation of shock waves embedded in the structure is avoided. Received 4 August 1995 / Accepted 6 March 1996     

Vortex stretching in a laminar boundary layer flow

 A new technique to produce controlled stretched vortices is presented. The initial vorticity comes from a laminar boundary layer flow and the stretching is parallel to the initial vorticity. This low velocity flow enables direct observations of the formation and destabilization of vortices. Visualizations are combined with quasi-instantaneous measurements of a full velocity profile obtained with an ultra-sonic pulsed Doppler velocimeter. Several modes of destabilization are observed and include pairing of two vortices, hairpin deformation, and vortex breakdown into a coil shape. Received: 3 April 1996/ Accepted: 4 October 1996     

A vorticity stretching diagnostic for turbulent and transitional flows

Vorticity stretching in wall-bounded turbulent and transitional flows has been investigated by means of a new diagnostic measure, denoted by Γ, designed to pick up regions with large amounts of vorticity stretching. It is based on the maximum vorticity stretching component in every spatial point, thus yielding a three-dimensional scalar field. The measure was applied in four different flows with increasing complexity: (a) the near-wall cycle in an asymptotic suction boundary layer (ASBL), (b) K-type transition in a plane channel flow, (c) fully turbulent channel flow at Re _τ = 180 and (d) a complex turbulent three-dimensional separated flow. Instantaneous data show that the coherent structures associated with intense vorticity stretching in all four cases have the shape of flat ‘pancake’ structures in the vicinity of high-speed streaks, here denoted ‘h-type’ events. The other event found is of ‘l-type’, present on top of an unstable low-speed streak. These events (l-type) are further thought to be associated with the exponential growth of streamwise vorticity in the turbulent near-wall cycle. It was found that the largest occurrence of vorticity stretching in the fully turbulent wall-bounded flows is present at a wall-normal distance of y ⁺?=?6.5, i.e. in the transition between the viscous sublayer and buffer layer. The associated structures have a streamwise length of ~200–300 wall units. In K-type transition, the Γ-measure accurately locates the regions of interest, in particular the formation of high-speed streaks near the wall (h-type) and the appearance of the hairpin vortex (l-type). In the turbulent separated flow, the structures containing large amounts of vorticity stretching increase in size and magnitude in the shear layer upstream of the separation bubble but vanish in the backflow region itself. Overall, the measure proved to be useful in showing growing instabilities before they develop into structures, highlighting the mechanisms creating high shear region on a wall and showing turbulence creation associated with instantaneous separations.     

Hairpin vortices in the largest scale of turbulent boundary layers

We have conducted direct numerical simulations of a turbulent boundary layer for the momentum-thickness-based Reynolds number ${\mathit{Re}}_{\theta }$ = 180–4600. To extract the largest-scale vortices, we coarse-grain the fluctuating velocity fields by using a Gaussian filter with the filter width comparable to the boundary layer thickness. Most of the largest-scale vortices identified by isosurfaces of the second invariant of the coarse-grained velocity gradient tensor are similar to coherent vortices observed in low-Reynolds-number regions, that is, hairpin vortices or quasi-streamwise vortices inclined to the wall. We also develop a percolation analysis to investigate the threshold-dependence of the isosurfaces and objectively identify the largest-scale hairpin vortices in terms of the coarse-grained vorticity, which leads to the quantitative evidence that they never disappear even in fully developed turbulent regions. Hence, we conclude that hairpin vortices exist in the largest-scale structures irrespective of the Reynolds number.     

平行涡管三维合并的直接数值模拟

采用拟谱方法求解Ｎａｖｉｅｒ－Ｓｔｏｋｅｓ方程，对两个同向平行涡管的三维合并过程进行直接数值模拟，分析了它的不同于二维合并的“缠绕式”特性，特别地，对在合并过程中产生的垂直于初始涡管方向的非主体涡量的意义和物理机制了探讨。     

Skin-friction drag reduction in turbulent channel flow based on streamwise shear control

It is known that stretching and intensification of a hairpin vortex by mean shear play an important role to create a hairpin vortex packet, which generates the large Reynolds shear stress associated with skin-friction drag in wall-bounded turbulent flows. In order to suppress the mean shear at the wall for high efficient drag reduction (DR), in the present study, we explore an active flow control concept using streamwise shear control (SSC) at the wall. The longitudinal control surface is periodically spanwise-arranged with no-control surface while varying the structural spacing, and an amplitude parameter for imposing the strength of the actuating streamwise velocity at the wall is introduced to further enhance the skin-friction DR. Significant DR is observed with an increase in the two parameters with an accompanying reduction of the Reynolds stresses and vorticity fluctuations, although a further increase in the parameters amplifies the turbulence activity in the near-wall region. In order to study the direct relationship between turbulent vortical structures and DR under the SSC, temporal evolution with initial eddies extracted by conditional averages for Reynolds-stress-maximizing Q2 events are examined. It is shown that the generation of new vortices is dramatically inhibited with an increase in the parameters throughout the flow, causing fewer vortices to be generated under the control. However, when the structural spacing is sufficiently large, the generation of new vortex is not suppressed over the no-control surface in the near-wall region, resulting in an increase of the second- and fourth-quadrant Reynolds shear stresses. Although strong actuating velocity intensifies the near-wall turbulence, the increase in the turbulence activity is attributed to the generation of counter-clockwise near-wall vortices by the increased vortex transport.     

Rayleigh Conductivity and Self-Sustained Oscillations

The theory of self-sustaining oscillations of low Mach number, high Reynolds number shear layers, and jets impinging on edges and corners is discussed. Such oscillations generate narrow band sound, and are usually attributed to the formation of discrete vortices whose interactions with the edge or corner produce impulsive pressures that trigger the cyclic formation of new vorticity. A linearized analysis of these interactions is described in which free shear layers are treated as vortex sheets. Details are given for shear flow over wall apertures and shallow cavities, and for jet–edge interactions. The operating stages of the oscillations correspond to complex eigenvalues of the linear theory: for wall apertures and edge tones they are poles in the upper half of the complex frequency plane of the Rayleigh conductivity of the “window” spanned by the shear flow; for shallow wall cavities they are poles of a frequency-dependent drag coefficient. It is argued that the frequencies defined by the real parts of the complex frequencies at these poles determine the operating stage Strouhal numbers observed experimentally. Strouhal number predictions for a shallow wall cavity are in good agreement with data extrapolated to zero Mach number from measurements in air; edge tone predictions are in excellent accord with data from various sources in the literature. Received 3 January 1997 and accepted 13 February 1997     

Interaction of Two-Dimensional Trailing Vortex Pair with a Shear Layer

The basic laws governing the interaction of a two-dimensional vortex pair with a shear layer of constant thickness are considered. The main idea of the study is to develop and adapt a simplified representation of a hydrodynamic flow based on a point-vortex model simulating the actual interaction of full-scale vortex patterns over the ground surface. It is shown that vortices with vorticity opposite in sign to the shear layer may stop or even ricochet from this layer, while the other vortex may penetrate through the layer. Numerical results are presented as plots and analyzed     

A note on numerical simulation of vortical structures in shock diffraction

In numerical simulation of the Euler equations, the slipstream or shear layer that appears behind a diffracted shock wave may develop small discrete vortices using fine computational meshes. Similar phenomena were also observed in the simulation of a Mach reflection that is accompanied by a shear layer. However, these small vortices have never been observed in any shock-tube experiment, although the wave pattern and the shape of the main vortex agree very well with visualization results. Numerical solutions obtained with coarse grids may agree better with experimental photos than those with very fine grids because of the pollution of the small vortices. This note tries to investigate the effect of viscosity on the small vortices by comparing the solutions of the laminar Navier-Stokes equations and the turbulence model. It is found that the small vortices are still observed in the solution of the laminar Navier-Stokes equations, although they can be suppressed by using the turbulence model. Numerical and experimental factors that are responsible for the deviation of the laminar solutions from experimental results are discussed. The secondary vortex in shock diffraction is successfully simulated by solving the Navier-Stokes equations.Received: 28 March 2003, Accepted: 6 May 2003, Published online: 11 June 2003     

Numerical simulation of quasi-streamwise hairpin-like vortex generation in turbulent boundary layer

A mechanism for generation of near wall quasi-streamwise hairpin-like vortex （QHV） and secondary quasi-streamwise vortices （SQV） is presented. The conceptual model of resonant triad in the theory of hydrodynamic instability and direct numerical simulation of a turbulent boundary layer were applied to reveal the formation of QHV and SQV. The generation procedures and the characteristics of the vortex structures are obtained, which share some similarities with previous numerical simulations. The research using resonant triad conceptual model and numerical simulation provides a possibility for investigating and controling the vortex structures, which play a dominant role in the evolution of coherent structures in the near-wall region.     

Vortex stripping and the generation of high vorticity gradients in two-dimensional flows

We study the stripping of vortices with monotonic vorticity profiles within adverse shear. It is shown that distributed vortices behave differently from uniform patches regarding the critical onset of tearing. Stripping erodes the exterior layers of a distributed profile and generates very high vorticity gradients at the edge of the vortex. These effects are measured, and a theory which allows a detailed quantification of the mechanism is presented.     

HLLE++格式在高马赫数空腔流动模拟中的应用

空腔流动存在剪切层运动、涡脱落与破裂,以及激波与激波、激波与剪切层、激波与膨胀波和激波/涡/剪切层相互干扰等现象,流动非常复杂,特别是高马赫数(M>2)时,剪切层和激波更强,激波与激波干扰更严重,对数值格式的要求更高,既需要格式耗散小,对分离涡等有很高的模拟精度,又需要格式在激波附近具有较大的耗散,可以很好地捕捉激波,防止非物理解的出现。Roe和HLLC等近似Riemann解格式在高马赫数强激波处可能会出现红玉现象,而HLLE++格式大大改善了这种缺陷,在捕捉高超声速激波时避免了红玉现象的发生,同时还保持在光滑区域的低数值耗散特性。本文在结构网格下HLLE++格式的基础上,通过改进激波探测的求解,建立了基于非结构混合网格的HLLE++计算方法,通过无粘斜坡算例,验证了HLLE++格式模拟高马赫数流动的能力,并应用于高马赫数空腔流动的数值模拟,开展了网格和湍流模型影响研究,验证了方法模拟高马赫数空腔流动的可靠性和有效性。     

On the etiology of shear layer vortices

In an effort to isolate the mechanism by which streamwise structures form in turbulent wall layers, evolution equations were derived for the streamwise velocity and vorticity perturbations about a mean turbulent fully developed channel flow. The stability of these equations, which take their most concise form when derived from the Generalized Lagrangian mean equations of Andrews and McIntyre, are studied assuming normal modes and infinitesimal disturbances. The resulting stability diagram yields, inter alia, the spanwise periodicity of the resulting structures, which we term shear layer vortices. If streaks are thought of as the footprints of these vortices, we then have a formal way of determining the spacing of streaks. The first three modes of instability are determined; at the first not just two vortices form per period, but four. It is also evident that an intense local shear layer forms about the plane in which the convection velocity equals the mean Eulerian velocity.Dedicated to Professor J.L. Lumley on the occasion of his 60th birthday.This work was supported in part by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under SRO IV Grant No. N00014-85-K-0172 and in part by the National Science Foundation Grant CTS-9008477.     

Wind Impact on Single Vortices and Counterrotating Vortex Pairs in Ground Proximity

Wall-resolved large eddy simulations are employed to investigate the behaviour of wake vortices and single vortices in ground proximity at a variety of wind conditions. The six considered strengths of wind, ranging between 0.5 and 4 times the initial wake vortex descent speed, w₀, include practically and theoretically significant wind speeds. A crosswind of 0.5 w₀ may lead to windward stall posing a potential hazard to subsequently landing aircraft, whereas theoretical considerations predict that at 4 w₀ the rebound of the luff vortex is completely suppressed. The same range of wind speeds is also used to investigate the effects of headwind and diagonal wind in order to discriminate between effects of environmental turbulence increasing with wind speed and the direction of the wind shear. The study has been complemented by a number of single vortex computations in order to differentiate between effects related to the mutual interaction of the vortex pair and the individual vortices with the turbulent boundary layer flow. It is shown that vortex ascent, descent, rebound and decay characteristics are controlled by (i) the interaction of the vortices with secondary vorticity detaching from the ground, (ii) the redistribution of vorticity of the boundary layer which is altering the path of the primary vortices by mutual velocity induction, and (iii) the interaction of the vortices with the environmental turbulence.