Eulerian and Lagrangian views of a turbulent boundary layer flow using time-resolved tomographic PIV

Coherent structures and their time evolution in the logarithmic region of a turbulent boundary layer investigated by means of 3D space–time correlations and time-dependent conditional averaging techniques are the focuses of the present paper. Experiments have been performed in the water tunnel at TU Delft measuring the particle motion within a volume of a turbulent boundary layer flow along a flat plate at a free-stream velocity of 0.53 m/s at Re _θ = 2,460 based on momentum thickness by using time-resolved tomographic particle image velocimetry (PIV) at 1 kHz sampling rate and particle tracking velocimetry (PTV). The obtained data enable an investigation into the flow structures in a 3D Eulerian reference frame within time durations corresponding to 28 δ/U. An analysis of the time evolution of conditional averages of vorticity components representing inclined hairpin-like legs and of Q2- and Q4-events has been performed, which gives evidence to rethink the early stages of the classical hairpin development model for high Reynolds number TBLs. Furthermore, a PTV algorithm has been applied on the time sequences of reconstructed 3D particle image distributions identifying thousands of particle trajectories that enable the calculation of probability distributions of the three components of Lagrangian accelerations.     

Tomographic PIV investigation of coherent structures in a turbulent boundary layer flow

Tomographic particle image velocimetry was used to quantitatively visualize the three-dimensional coherent structures in the logarithmic region of the turbulent boundary layer in a water tunnel.The Reynolds number based on momentum thickness is Reθ = 2 460.The instantaneous velocity fields give evidence of hairpin vortices aligned in the streamwise direction forming very long zones of low speed fluid,which is flanked on either side by highspeed ones.Statistical support for the existence of hairpins is given by conditional averaged eddy within an increasing spanwise width as the distance from the wall increases,and the main vortex characteristic in different wall-normal regions can be reflected by comparing the proportion of ejection and its contribution to Reynolds stress with that of sweep event.The pre-multiplied power spectra and two-point correlations indicate the presence of large-scale motions in the boundary layer,which are consistent with what have been termed very large scale motions(VLSMs).The three dimen-sional spatial correlations of three components of velocity further indicate that the elongated low-speed and highspeed regions will be accompanied by a counter-rotating roll modes,as the statistical imprint of hairpin packet structures,all of which together make up the characteristic of coherent structures in the logarithmic region of the turbulent boundary layer(TBL).     

Measurement of local forcing on a turbulent boundary layer using PIV

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the effect of periodic blowing and suction on a turbulent boundary layer. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to probe the characteristics of the flow. Local forcing was introduced to the boundary layer via a sinusoidally-oscillating jet issuing from a thin spanwise slot. Three forcing frequencies (f⁺=0.44, 0.66 and 0.88) with a fixed forcing amplitude (A⁺=0.6) were employed at Re _θ =690. The effect of three different forcing angles (α=60°, 90° and l20°) was investigated under a fixed forcing frequency (f⁺=0.088). The PIV results showed that the wall-region velocity decreases on imposition of the local forcing. Inspection of the phase-averaged velocity profiles revealed that spanwise large-scale vortices are generated downstream of the slot and persist farther downstream. The highest reduction in skin friction was achieved at the highest forcing frequency (f⁺=0.088) and a forcing angle of α=120°. The spatial fraction of the vortices was examined to analyze the skin friction reduction.     

PIV measurements in a weakly separating and reattaching turbulent boundary layer

A high Reynolds number flat plate turbulent boundary layer was studied in a wind-tunnel experiment using particle image velocimetry (PIV). The flow is subjected to an adverse pressure gradient (APG) which is designed such that the boundary layer separates and reattaches, forming a weak separation bubble. With PIV we are able to get a more complete picture of this complex flow phenomenon. The view of a separation bubble being composed of large scale coherent regions of instantaneous backflow occurring randomly in a three-dimensional manner in space and time is verified by the present PIV measurements. The PIV database was used to test the applicability of various velocity scalings around the separation bubble. We found that the mean velocity profiles in the outer part of the boundary layer, and to some extent also the Reynolds shear-stress, are self-similar when using a velocity scale based on the local pressure gradient. The same can be said for the so called Perry–Schofield scaling, which suggests that the two velocity scales are connected. This can also be interpreted as an experimental evidence of the claimed relation between the latter velocity scale and the maximum Reynolds shear-stress.     

Investigation of the spatio-temporal flow structure in the buffer region of a turbulent boundary layer by means of multiplane stereo PIV

In order to examine the physical process associated with the production and transport of turbulence in wall bounded flows, a fully developed turbulent boundary layer flow along a flat plate is investigated in stream-wise span-wise planes at y⁺10, 20, and 30, and Re7,800 by using a high-resolution multiplane stereo PIV system. Of particular interest are the structural features of the coherent flow structures, such as their average size and shape, but their intensity, dynamics, and interaction are also examined. The information is deduced from the joint probability density function of the velocity fluctuations and from various correlation, cross-correlation, and conditional-correlation functions. Furthermore, characteristic instantaneous velocity fields are analyzed in order to examine the importance of the individual coherent flow structures for the production of turbulence and the transport of Reynolds stresses.     

An orthogonal-plane PIV technique for the investigations of three-dimensional vortical structures in a turbulent boundary layer flow

An experimental investigation was carried out regarding a three-dimensional topology of a zero-pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer. In this study, the polarization separation technique has been applied to the PIV measurements. Two mutually perpendicular measurement planes have been employed in x–y and x–z planes, respectively. Synchronization between a stereoscopic PIV with another plane PIV system was made toward the detection of such salient features of the coherent structure as the legs and the head of the hairpin vortices. Polarization rotation via a half-waveplate and subsequent particle image separation using polarizer minimized the spurious particle images. The PIV results clearly demonstrate the presence of hairpin-like coherent vortical structures and coincidence between the near-wall quasi-streamwise vortex pair and the legs of the hairpin vortex.     

Visualization of flow structures in a turbulent boundary layer using a new technique

In this paper, an experimental investigation on the flow structures in a turbulent boundary layer employing a special laser light sheet-Hydrogen bubble flow visualization technique is described. It is observed that the high/low speed streaks are directly related to the hairpin or horseshoe-like vortices. This observation can give a better understanding of the physical mechanism in the turbulent boundary layer. Fluid Mechanic Institute, BUAA     

PIV measurements of turbulent flow in planar mixing layer

A turbulent mixing layer consists of two different flow types, i.e. shear layer (shear-flow turbulence) and free stream regions (nearly homogeneous turbulence). The inherent non-uniform seeding tracer distributions observed around the interfaces between the shear layer and two free stream regions usually lead to a difficulty in particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements. A parametric study on the application of PIV to the measurement of velocity field in a planar mixing layer is made by means of six factors, including interrogation window size, aspect ratio of interrogation window, interrogation window offset, threshold of data validation, sharpening spatial filters (Prewitt and Sobel masks), and smoothing spatial filter (median mask). The objective of this study is to obtain accurate turbulent measurements in both mean and fluctuating velocities using PIV under an appropriate parametric setting. The optimal levels, which are trade-off in between the accuracy and fine spatial resolution of velocity field measurements, are determined with the aid of the Taguchi method. It is shown that the PIV measurements made with this optimal set of parameters are in good agreement with the measurements made by a two-component hot-wire anemometer. Case independency of the proposed optimal set of parameters on the flow condition of the mixing layer is validated through the applications to two additional tests under the different experimental conditions in changing solely either velocity ratio of high-speed to low-speed free stream velocities or Reynolds number.     

Lagrangian and Eulerian pressure field evaluation of rod-airfoil flow from time-resolved tomographic PIV

This work investigates the rod-airfoil air flow by time-resolved Tomographic Particle Image Velocimetry (TR-TOMO PIV) in thin-light volume configuration. Experiments are performed at the region close to the leading edge of a NACA0012 airfoil embedded in the von Kármán wake of a cylindrical rod. The 3D velocity field measured at 5 kHz is used to evaluate the instantaneous planar pressure field by integration of the pressure gradient field. The experimental data are treated with a discretized model based on multiple velocity measurements. The time separation used to evaluate the Lagrangian derivative along a fluid parcel trajectory has to be taken into account to reduce precision error. By comparing Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches, the latter is restricted to shorter time separations and is found not applicable to evaluate pressure gradient field if a relative precision error lower than 10% is required. Finally, the pressure evaluated from tomographic velocity measurements is compared to that obtained from simulated planar ones to discuss the effect of 3D flow phenomena on the accuracy of the proposed technique.     

Stereoscopic PIV measurements of a turbulent boundary layer with a large spatial dynamic range

The flow in a streamwise/wall-normal plane of a turbulent boundary layer at moderate Reynolds number (Re _θ = 2,200) is characterized using two stereo PIV systems just overlapping in the streamwise direction. The aim is to generate SPIV data for near-wall turbulence with enough spatial dynamic range to resolve most of the coherent structures present in the flow and to facilitate future comparisons with direct numerical simulations. This is made possibly through the use of four cameras with large CCD arrays (4,008 px × 2,672 px) and through a rigorous experimental procedure designed to minimize the impact of measurement noise on the resolution of the small scales. For the first time, both a large field of view [S _x ; S _y ] = [2.6δ; 0.75δ] and a high spatial resolution (with an interrogation window size of 13.6⁺) have been achieved. The quality of the data is assessed through an analysis of some of the statistical results such as the mean velocity profile, the rms and the PDF of the fluctuations, and the power spectra.     

Double large field stereoscopic PIV in a high Reynolds number turbulent boundary layer

An experiment on a flat plate turbulent boundary layer at high Reynolds number has been carried out in the Laboratoire de Mecanique de Lille (LML, UMR CNRS 8107) wind tunnel. This experiment was performed jointly with LEA (UMR CNRS 6609) in Poitiers (France) and Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), in the frame of the WALLTURB European project. The simultaneous recording of 143 hot wires in one transverse plane and of two perpendicular stereoscopic PIV fields was performed successfully. The first SPIV plane is 1?cm upstream of the hot wire rake and the second is both orthogonal to the first one and to the wall. The first PIV results show a blockage effect which based on both statistical results (i.e. mean, RMS and spatial correlation) and a potential model does not seem to affect the turbulence organization.     

On the structure of a turbulent spot in a heated laminar boundary layer

An artificially generated turbulent spot was investigated experimentally in a heated boundary layer using a rake of mini-thermocouples. Simultaneous temperature traces were used to determine the spot's leading and trailing edge characteristics. The measurements on the centerline of the plate at a constant velocity and variable streamwise positions provided a Re _x range of 2.45–12.6 x 10⁵. At one axial station the free stream velocity was varied and off-axis measurements were obtained.The shape of the interface between the spot and the surrounding laminar flow was described by conventional and conditional histograms. The length of the spot's leading edge (i.e. the overhang) increased linearly with the downstream distance. Off-axis, the length of the overhang decreased slightly towards the wing tips but became larger with respect to the spot's streamwise extent. The trailing edge changed less significantly in the downstream direction.It was shown that when two spots are generated such that the leading edge of the upstream spot is in the calmed region of the downstream spot, the celerity of the upstream spot is decreased and the spots ultimately merge.     

PIV study of the influence of large-scale streamwise vortices on a turbulent boundary layer

Vortex generator jets were used to generate large-scale longitudinal vortices embedded in a flat-plate turbulent boundary layer. The investigation was performed in a water tunnel, measuring instantaneous flow fields in planes parallel and normal to the flat plate, using particle image velocimetry. The objective of the research was to observe the response of near-wall turbulence to the imposed perturbing flow. It was shown that a small-amplitude forcing vortical flow had significant influence on the mean and fluctuating velocity profiles. Moreover, particle image velocimetry permitted speculation upon the behaviour of the wall velocity streaks under the action of the perturbing forcing vortical flow.     

Analysis of time-resolved PIV measurements of a confined turbulent jet using POD and Koopman modes

We present a comparative analysis of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) computed from experimental data of a turbulent, quasi 2-D, confined jet with co-flow (Re?=?11,500, co-flow ratio inner-to-outer flow ≈2:1). The experimental data come from high-speed 2-D particle image velocimetry. The flow is fully turbulent, and it contains geometry-dependent large-scale coherent structures; thus, it provides an interesting benchmark case for the comparison between POD and DMD. In this work, we address issues related to snapshot selections (1), convergence (2) and the physical interpretation (3) of both POD and DMD modes. We found that the convergence of POD modes follows the criteria of statistical convergence of the autocovariance matrix. For the computation of DMD modes, we suggest a methodology based on two criteria: the analysis of the residuals to optimize the sampling parameters of the snapshots, and a time-shifting procedure that allows us to identify the spurious modes and retain the modes that consistently appear in the spectrum. These modes are found to be the ones with nearly null growth rate. We then present the selected modes, and we discuss the way POD and DMD rank them. POD analysis reveals that the most energetic spatial structures are related to the large-scale oscillation of the inner jet (flapping); from the temporal analysis emerges that these modes are associated with a low-frequency peak at St?=?0.02. At this frequency, DMD identifies a similar mode, where oblique structures from the walls appear together with the flapping mode. The second most energetic group of modes identified is associated with shear-layer oscillations, and to a recirculation zone near the inner jet. Temporal analysis of these modes shows that the flapping of the inner jet might be sustained by the recirculation. In the DMD, the shear-layer modes are separated from the recirculation modes. These have large amplitudes in the DMD. In conclusion, the DMD modes with eigenvalues on the unit circle are found to be similar to the most energetic POD modes, although differences appear due to the fact that DMD isolates structures associated with one frequency only.     

Two-phase measurements of saltating turbulent boundary layer flow

Mean wind and particle speed measurements as functions of heigh were made for a saltating turbulent boundary layer flow. An exponential dependence of particle flux with height above the surface was found independent of windspeed and particle size. Particle-speed distributions as functions of height above the surface were measured for experiments conducted at two ambient pressures: atmospheric pressure and approximately 1% atmospheric pressure. The wind was shown to be a more efficient mover of particles at atmospheric pressure.High-speed motion pictures of saltating ground walnut shells (of diameter 500–1500 μm and density 1.1 g/cm³) were taken in an environmental wind tunnel to simulate the planetary boundary layer. These experiments verify the existence and magnitude of particle spin rates proposed by White & Schulz (1977). There was remarkable agreement between numerical trajectory solutions, including the spin effect, and the filmed trajectories. An observation was made that not all particles spin exclusively in the vertical longitudinal plane (in the direction of flow). At low pressures (0.6 kPa) the effect of spin forces on the particle's trajectory was shown to have little influence and was verified by a theoretical force ration balance of spin to drag force.     

Investigation of a turbulent boundary layer on a hypersonic aircraft model

An algorithm for calculation of a spatial compressible turbulent boundary layer on the surface of a pointed body is developed. The algorithm is based on the numerical solution of three-dimensional equations and algebraic models of turbulence. The flow around a hypersonic aircraft model is calculated, and the resultant Stanton numbers are compared with experimental data. The influence of the Mach number, the angle of attack, and the Reynolds number on the boundary-layer parameters is studied. It is shown that the change in the location of the transition zone has a weak effect on the skin-friction coefficient in the region of developed turbulent flow. Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Siberian Division, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090.¹Technical University, Delft, the Netherlands. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 115–125, January–February, 1999.     

The accuracy of tomographic particle image velocimetry for measurements of a turbulent boundary layer

To investigate the accuracy of tomographic particle image velocimetry (Tomo-PIV) for turbulent boundary layer measurements, a series of synthetic image-based simulations and practical experiments are performed on a high Reynolds number turbulent boundary layer at Re_θ = 7,800. Two different approaches to Tomo-PIV are examined using a full-volume slab measurement and a thin-volume “fat” light sheet approach. Tomographic reconstruction is performed using both the standard MART technique and the more efficient MLOS-SMART approach, showing a 10-time increase in processing speed. Random and bias errors are quantified under the influence of the near-wall velocity gradient, reconstruction method, ghost particles, seeding density and volume thickness, using synthetic images. Experimental Tomo-PIV results are compared with hot-wire measurements and errors are examined in terms of the measured mean and fluctuating profiles, probability density functions of the fluctuations, distributions of fluctuating divergence through the volume and velocity power spectra. Velocity gradients have a large effect on errors near the wall and also increase the errors associated with ghost particles, which convect at mean velocities through the volume thickness. Tomo-PIV provides accurate experimental measurements at low wave numbers; however, reconstruction introduces high noise levels that reduces the effective spatial resolution. A thinner volume is shown to provide a higher measurement accuracy at the expense of the measurement domain, albeit still at a lower effective spatial resolution than planar and Stereo-PIV.