University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Population trends of spanwise vortices in wall turbulence

Wu, Yanhua; Christensen, Kenneth T.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/1711

Description

Title
Population trends of spanwise vortices in wall turbulence
Author(s)
  • Wu, Yanhua
  • Christensen, Kenneth T.
Issue Date
2006
Keyword(s)
  • Wall turbulence
  • Vortices
Abstract
The present effort documents the population trends of prograde and retrograde spanwise vortex cores in wall turbulence outside the buffer layer. Large ensembles of instantaneous velocity fields are acquired by particle-image velocimetry in the streamwise–wall-normal plane of both turbulent channel flow at Reτ ≡ u∗δ/ν = 570, 1185 and 1760 and a zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layer at Reτ = 1400, 2350 and 3450. Substantial numbers of prograde spanwise vortices are found to populate the inner boundary of the log layer of both flows and most of these vortices have structural signatures consistent with the heads of hairpin vortices. In contrast, retrograde vortices are most prominent at the outer edge of the log layer, often nesting near clusters of prograde vortices. Appropriate Reynolds-number scalings for outer- and inner-scaled population densities of prograde and retrograde vortices are determined. However, the Reτ = 570 channel-flow case deviates from these scalings, indicating that it suffers from low-Re effects. When the population densities are recast in terms of fractions of resolved prograde and retrograde spanwise vortices, similarity is observed for 100
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1711
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S002211200600259X
Copyright and License Information
Copyright owned by Cambridge University Press 2006.

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Published Papers - Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM) PRIMARY
Papers published by faculty in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics