Effects of the roughness height in turbulent boundary layers over rod- and cuboid-roughened walls

Direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of spatially developing turbulent boundary layers (TBLs) over two-dimensional (2D) rod-roughened walls and three-dimensional (3D) cuboid-roughened walls are conducted to investigate the effects of the roughness height on the flow characteristics in the outer layer. The rod elements are periodically aligned along the downstream direction with a pitch of p_x/θ_in = 12, and the cuboid elements are periodically staggered with a pitch of p_x/θ_in = 12 and p_z/θ_in = 3, where p_x and p_z are correspondingly the streamwise and spanwise pitches of the roughness and θ_in is the momentum thickness at the inlet. The first surface roughness is placed 80θ_in downstream from the inlet, leading to a step change from a smooth to rough surface. The rod and cuboid roughness height (k) is varied in the range of 0.1 ≤ k/θ_in ≤ 1.8 (13 ≤ δ/k ≤ 285), respectively (δ is the boundary layer thickness), and the Reynolds number based on the momentum thickness (θ) is varied in the range of Re_θ = 300 ~ 1400. For each case, the self-preservation form of the velocity-defect and the turbulent Reynolds stresses is achieved along the downstream direction. As the roughness height increases, the roughness function (ΔU⁺) extracted from the mean velocity profiles increases, although the velocity-defect profiles for the rough-wall cases show good agreement with the profile from the smooth-wall case. The magnitude of the Reynolds stresses in the outer layer increases with an increase of k/δ. The outer layer similarity between the flows over the rough and smooth-walls is found when δ/k ≥ 250 and 100 for the 2D rod and 3D cuboid, respectively. The continuous increase of the Reynolds stresses in the outer layer with an increase of k/δ is explained by a large population of very long structures over the rough-wall flows. Because the characteristic width of the structures increases continuously with an increase of k/δ for the rod and cuboid roughness, a wide width of the structures leads to frequent spanwise merging between adjacent structures. The active spanwise merging events with an increase of k/δ increase the streamwise coherence of the structures with the appearance of significant meandering.     

Turbulent boundary layers over sparsely-spaced rod-roughened walls

Direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of spatially developing turbulent boundary layers (TBLs) over sparsely-spaced two-dimensional (2D) rod-roughened walls were performed. The rod elements were periodically arranged along the streamwise direction with pitches of p_x/k = 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128, where p_x is the streamwise spacing of the rods, and k is the roughness height. The Reynolds number based on the momentum thickness was varied from Re_θ = 300–1400, and the height of the roughness element was k = 1.5θ_in, where θ_in is the momentum thickness at the inlet. The characteristics of the TBLs, such as the friction velocity, mean velocity, and Reynolds stresses over the rod-roughened walls, were examined by varying the spacing of the roughness features (8 ⩽ p_x/k ⩽ 128). The outer-layer similarity between the rough and smooth walls was established for the sparsely-distributed rough walls (p_x/k ⩾ 32) based on the profiles of the Reynolds stresses, whereas those are not for p_x/k = 8 and 16. Inspection of the interaction between outer-layer large-scale motions and near-wall small-scale motions using two-point amplitude modulation (AM) covariance showed that modulation effect of large-scale motions on near-wall small-scale motions was strongly disturbed over the rough wall for p_x/k = 8 and 16. For p_x/k ⩾ 32, the flow that passed through the upstream roughness element transitioned to a smooth wall flow between the consecutive rods. The strong influence of the surface roughness in the outer layer for p_x/k = 8 and 16 was attributed to large-scale erupting motions by the surface roughness, creating both upward shift of the near-wall turbulent energy and active energy production in the outer layer with little influence on the near-wall region.     

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.     

Transitionally rough zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layers

Near-wall measurements are performed to study the effects of surface roughness and viscous shear stresses on the transitionally rough regime (5 < k ⁺ < 70) of a zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer. The x-dependence is known from the eleven consecutive measurements in the streamwise direction, which allows for the computation of the streamwise gradients in the boundary layer equations. Thus, the skin friction is computed from the integrated boundary layer equation with errors of 3 and 5% for smooth and rough, respectively. It is found that roughness destroys the viscous layer near the wall, thus, reducing the contribution of the viscous stress in the wall region. As a result, the contribution in the wall shear stress due to form drag increases, while the viscous stress decreases. This yields Reynolds number invariance in the skin friction as k ⁺ increases into the fully rough regime. Furthermore, the roughness at the wall reduces the high peak of the streamwise component of the Reynolds stress in the near-wall region. However, for the Reynolds wall-normal and shear stress components, its contribution is not significantly altered for sand grain roughness.     

Turbulent boundary layer flow with a step change from smooth to rough surface

A direct numerical simulation (DNS) dataset of a turbulent boundary layer (TBL) with a step change from a smooth to a rough surface is analyzed to examine the characteristics of a spatially developing flow. The roughness elements are periodically arranged two-dimensional (2-D) spanwise rods, with the first rod placed 80θ_in downstream from the inlet, where θ_in denotes the inlet momentum thickness. Based on an accurate estimation of relevant parameters, clear evidence for mean flow universality is provided when scaled properly, even for the present roughness configuration, which is believed to have one of the strongest impacts on the flow. Compared to previous studies, it is shown that overshooting behavior is present in the first- and second-order statistics and is locally created either within the cavity or at the leading edge of the roughness depending on the type of statistics and the wall-normal measurement location. Inspection of spatial two-point correlations of the streamwise velocity fluctuations shows a continuous increase of spanwise length scales of structures over the rough wall after the step change at a greater growth rate than that over smooth wall TBL flow. This is expected because spanwise energy spectrum shows presence of much energetic wider structures over the rough wall. Full images of the DNS data are presented to describe not only predominance of hairpin vortices but also a possible spanwise scale growth mechanism via merging over the rough wall.     

Direct numerical simulation of stable and unstable turbulent thermal boundary layers

This paper presents direct numerical simulations (DNS) of stable and unstable turbulent thermal boundary layers. Since a buoyancy-affected boundary layer is often encountered in an urban environmental space where stable and unstable stratifications exist, exploring a buoyancy-affected boundary layer is very important to know the transport phenomena of the flow in an urban space. Although actual observation may qualitatively provide the characteristics of these flows, the relevant quantitative turbulent quantities are very difficult to measure. Thus, in order to quantitatively investigate a buoyancy-affected boundary layer in detail, we have here carried out for the first time time- and space-developing DNS of slightly stable and unstable turbulent thermal boundary layers. The DNS results show the quantitative turbulent statistics and structures of stable and unstable thermal boundary layers, in which the characteristic transport phenomena of thermally stratified boundary layers are demonstrated by indicating the budgets of turbulent shear stress and turbulent heat flux. Even though the input of buoyant force is not large, the influence of buoyancy is clearly revealed in both stable and unstable turbulent boundary layers. In particular, it is found that both stable and unstable thermal stratifications caused by the weak buoyant force remarkably alter the structure of near-wall turbulence.     

Large-scale spanwise periodicity in a turbulent boundary layer induced by highly ordered and directional surface roughness

The effect of converging–diverging riblet-type surface roughness (riblets arranged in a ‘herringbone’ pattern) are investigated experimentally in a zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer. For this initial parametric investigation three different parameters of the surface roughness are analysed in detail; the converging–diverging riblet yaw angle α, the streamwise fetch or development length over the rough surface F_x and the viscous-scaled riblet height h⁺. It is observed that this highly directional surface roughness pattern induces a large-scale spanwise periodicity onto the boundary layer, resulting in a pronounced spanwise modification of the boundary layer thickness. Hot-wire measurements reveal that above the diverging region, the local mean velocity increases while the turbulent intensity decreases, resulting in a thinner overall boundary layer thickness in these locations. The opposite situation occurs over the converging region, where the local mean velocity is decreased and the turbulent intensity increases, producing a locally thicker boundary layer. Increasing the converging–diverging angle or the viscous-scaled riblet height results in stronger spanwise perturbations. For the strongest convergent–divergent angle, the spanwise variation of the boundary layer thickness between the diverging and converging region is almost a factor of two. Such a large variation is remarkable considering that the riblet height is only 1% of the unperturbed boundary layer thickness. Increasing the fetch seems to cause the perturbations to grow further from the surface, while the overall strength of the induced high and low speed regions remain relatively unaltered. Further analysis of the pre-multiplied energy spectra suggests that the surface roughness has modified or redistributed the largest scale energetic structures.     

DNS of a spatially developing turbulent boundary layer with passive scalar transport

A direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a spatially developing turbulent boundary layer over a flat plate under zero pressure gradient (ZPG) has been carried out. The evolution of several passive scalars with both isoscalar and isoflux wall boundary condition are computed during the simulation. The Navier–Stokes equations as well as the scalar transport equation are solved using a fully spectral method. The highest Reynolds number based on the free-stream velocity U_∞ and momentum thickness θ is Re_θ=830, and the molecular Prandtl numbers are 0.2, 0.71 and 2. To the authors’ knowledge, this Reynolds number is to date the highest with such a variety of scalars. A large number of turbulence statistics for both flow and scalar fields are obtained and compared when possible to existing experimental and numerical simulations at comparable Reynolds number. The main focus of the present paper is on the statistical behaviour of the scalars in the outer region of the boundary layer, distinctly different from the channel-flow simulations. Agreements as well as discrepancies are discussed while the influence of the molecular Prandtl number and wall boundary conditions is also highlighted. A Pr scaling for various quantities is proposed in outer scalings. In addition, spanwise two-point correlation and instantaneous fields are employed to investigate the near-wall streak spacing and the coherence between the velocity and the scalar fields. Probability density functions (PDF) and joint probability density functions (JPDF) are shown to identify the intermittency both near the wall and in the outer region of the boundary layer. The present simulation data will be available online for the research community.     

Unsteady wall-shear measurements in turbulent boundary layers using MEMS

Fluctuating skin friction is measured in two- and three-dimensional turbulent boundary layers using a MEMS sensor and a wall-wire as reference. Skewness, flatness and spectra of the turbulent skin friction are presented to demonstrate the potential and limitations of the MEMS sensor. The measured turbulence intensities of the order of 0.4 are in general agreement with a number of experimental and DNS studies. However, the fluctuating quantities measured with this MEMS sensor, operated at an over-heat ratio of 1.3, are shown to depend on the Reynolds number or mean skin friction. Therefore, such a high over-heat ratio, which was proven to dramatically increase the accuracy of mean skin friction measurements in a previous study by the authors, may not be appropriate for the measurement of fluctuating wall-shear with MEMS sensors, particularly at low mean shear values.     

Stability characteristics of laminar boundary layers over compliant walls

The stability characteristics of laminar boundary layers over compliant walls was studied by the linear theory. Unlike the previous authors, the coupled motion of the fluid and solid was required to satisfy the continuity conditions of both the velocity and stress at the interface. Results of calculations show that as the speed ratio or density ratio exceeds a certain threshold value, the two types of unstable waves will no longer be distinguishable, and the tangential component of the disturbance stress is no longer negligible. So the neglect of it, as the previous authors did, is unjustified. The project is supported by the National Natural Science Fundation of China.     

Direct numerical simulation of a turbulent boundary layer up to Reθ = 2500

Direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of a turbulent boundary layer (TBL) with Re_θ = 570-2560 were performed to investigate the spatial development of its turbulence characteristics. The inflow simulation was conducted in the range Re_θ = 570-1600 by using Lund’s method. To resolve the numerical periodicity induced by the recycling method, we adopted a sufficiently long streamwise domain of x/θ_in,i = 1000 (=125δ_0,i), where θ_in,i is the inlet momentum thickness and δ_0,i is the inlet boundary layer thickness in the inflow simulation. Furthermore, the main simulation with a length greater than 50δ₀ was carried out independently by using the inflow data, where δ₀ is the inlet boundary layer thickness of the main simulation. The integral quantities and the first-, second- and higher-order turbulence statistics were compared with those of previous data, and good agreement was found. The present study provides a useful database for the turbulence statistics of TBLs. In addition, instantaneous field and two-point correlation of the streamwise velocity fluctuations displayed the existence of the very large-scale motions (VLSMs) with the characteristic widths of 0.1-0.2δ and that the flow structure for a length of approximately ∼6δ fully occupies the streamwise domain statistically.     

Properties of the streamwise velocity fluctuations in the inertial layer of turbulent boundary layers and their connection to self-similar mean dynamics

Well-resolved streamwise velocity measurements are used to investigate three measures of self-similarity in the spatial inertial sublayer of turbulent boundary layers. The emergence of self-similarity in the inertial sublayer requires a high Reynolds number, and thus a relatively wide range of ${\delta }^{+}=\delta u_{\tau }/\nu$ $(1400\lesssim {\delta }^{+}\lesssim 20\text{,}000)$ is explored. The measures investigated include the Kullback–Leibler divergence (KLD) used in turbulent flow analysis by Tsuji et al. (2005), the logarithmic decrease of the even statistical moments studied by Meneveau and Marusic (2013), and the diagnostic plot of Alfredsson and Örlü (2010). These measures are compared with the analyses of Fife et al. (2005) that determine and exploit an invariant form of the mean momentum equation. A primary focus is on domain(s) where the self-similar behaviors are analytically predicted and empirically observed. The present findings indicate that the approximately constant KLD and approximately logarithmic moment profiles reside in a region that is interior to the bounds of the self-similar inertial domain associated with the mean momentum equation. Conversely, the bounds of the self-similar region on the diagnostic plot correspond closely to the theoretically estimated bounds. Results are briefly discussed relative to Townsend’s notion of outer layer similarity, and, on the inertial domain, the physical existence of uniform momentum zones segregated by narrow vortical fissures.     

Inflow boundary condition for DNS of turbulent boundary layers on supersonic blunt cones

For direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulent boundary layers, gen- eration of an appropriate inflow condition needs to be considered. This paper proposes a method, with which the inflow condition for spatial-mode DNS of turbulent boundary layers on supersonic blunt cones with different Mach numbers, Reynolds numbers and wall temperature conditions can be generated. This is based only on a given instant flow field obtained by a temporal-mode DNS of a turbulent boundary layer on a flat plate. Effectiveness of the method is shown in three typical examples by comparing the results with those obtained by other methods.     

Prediction of the turbulent boundary layer development by the lag-entrainment method

The lag-entrainment method, which is a well-established integral method for predicting the development of turbulent boundary layers, is used in this study to predict two-dimensional turbulent separated flow. The method is used in an inverse mode, in which the displacement thickness is specified together with other integral parameters of the boundary layer. It is concluded that the prediction of two-dimensional separated flow by an integral method is feasible, but there is a need for accurate data for both equilibrium and general separated flows for making a comparison.     

Prediction of resolvent mode shapes in supersonic turbulent boundary layers

This work applies resolvent analysis to compressible zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers with freestream Mach numbers between 2 and 4, focusing exclusively on large scale motions in the outer region of the boundary layer. We investigate the effects of Mach number on predicted flow structures, and in particular, look at how such effects may be attributed to changes in mean properties. By leveraging the similarity between the compressible and incompressible resolvent operators, we show that the shape of the streamwise velocity and temperature components of resolvent response modes in the compressible regime can be approximated by applying ideas from wavepacket pseudospectral theory to a simple scalar operator. This gives a means of predicting the shape of resolvent mode components for compressible flows without requiring the singular value decompositions of discretized operators. At a Mach number of 2, we find that accurate results are obtained from this approximation when using the compressible mean velocity profile. At Mach numbers of 3 and 4, the quantitative accuracy of these predictions is improved by also considering a local effective Reynolds number based on the local mean density and viscosity.     

Turbulence structure in non-equilibrium boundary layers with favorable and adverse pressure gradients

An experimental study was conducted to document the turbulence in boundary layers on smooth walls subject to a favorable pressure gradient followed by a zero pressure gradient recovery and an adverse pressure gradient. Two component velocity profiles were acquired along the spanwise centerline of the test section, and velocity fields were obtained at the same locations in streamwise wall-normal and streamwise–spanwise planes using PIV. The FPG was shown to reduce the turbulence in the outer part of the boundary layer, reducing the transport of this turbulence and the effect of sweeps toward the wall. This reduced the inclination angle of the large structures and increased their length scale, particularly in the streamwise and spanwise directions. Recovery from the FPG to a ZPG was rapid. The APG reduced the near wall shear, resulting in a reduced effect of ejections relative to sweeps. The APG had an opposite but smaller effect on the shape and size of structures compared to the FPG.