Visualization of turbulent flow around a sphere at subcritical reynolds numbers

The shear layer evolution and turbulent structure of near-wake behind a sphere atRe= 11,000 and 5,300 were investigated using a smoke-wire visualization method. A laminar flow separation was found to occur near the equator. The smooth laminar shear layers appeared to be axisymmetrically stable to the downstream location of aboutx/d=1.0 atRe=11,000 andx/d= 1.7∼1.8 atRe=5,300, respectively. At Re=11,000, the vortex ring-shaped protrusions were observed with the onset of shear layer instability. Moreover, the transition from laminar to turbulence in the separated flow region occurred earlier at the hiher Reynolds number ofRe=11,000 than atRe=5,300. The PIV measurements in the streamwise and cross-sectional planes atRe=11,000 clearly revealed the turbulent structures of the sphere wake such as recirculating flow, shear layer instability, vortex roll-up, and small-scale turbulent eddies.     

An experimental study on swirling flow in a cylindrical annuli using the PIV technique

Abstract  

An experimental investigation was conducted to study the characteristics of turbulent swirling flow in an axisymmetric annuli. The swirl angle measurements were performed using a flow visualization technique using smoke and dye liquid for Re = 60,000–80,000. Using the two-dimensional particle image velocimetry method, this study found the time-mean velocity distribution and turbulent intensity in water with swirl for Re = 20,000, 30,000, and 40,000 along longitudinal sections. There were neutral points for equal axial velocity at y/(R − r) = 0.7–0.75, and the highest axial velocity was recorded near y/(R − r) = 0.9. Negative axial velocity was observed near the convex tube along X/(D − d) = 3–23.     

Visualisation and analysis of large-scale vortex structures in three-dimensional turbulent lid-driven cavity flow

In this paper, large eddy simulation (LES) of a three-dimensional turbulent lid-driven cavity (LDC) flow at Re = 10,000 has been performed using the multiple relaxation time lattice Boltzmann method. A Smagorinsky eddy viscosity model was used to represent the sub-grid scale stresses with appropriate wall damping. The prediction for the flow field was first validated by comparing the velocity profiles with previous experimental and LES studies, and then subsequently used to investigate the large-scale three-dimensional vortical structures in the LDC flow. The instantaneous three-dimensional coherent structures inside the cavity were visualised using the second invariant (Q), Δ criterion, λ₂ criterion, swirling strength (λ_ci) and streamwise vorticity. The vortex structures obtained using the different criteria in general agree well with each other. However, a cleaner visualisation of the large vortex structures was achieved with the λ_ci criterion and also when the visualisation is based on the vortex identification criteria expressed in terms of the swirling strength parameters. A major objective of the study was to perform a three-dimensional proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) on the fluctuating velocity fields. The higher energy POD modes efficiently extracted the large-scale vortical structures within the flow which were then visualised with the swirling strength criterion. Reconstruction of the instantaneous fluctuating velocity field using a finite number of POD modes indicated that the large-scale vortex structures did effectively approximate the large-scale motion. However, such a reduced order reconstruction of the flow based on the large-scale vortical structures was clearly not as effective in predicting the small-scale details of the fluctuating velocity field which relate to the turbulent transport.     

Characterising the near-wake of a cross-flow turbine

The performance and detailed near-wake characteristics of a vertical axis, cross-flow turbine (CFT) of aspect ratio 1 were measured in a large cross-section towing tank. The near-wake at one turbine diameter downstream was examined using acoustic Doppler velocimetry, where essential features regarding momentum, energy, and vorticity are highlighted. Dominant scales and their relative importance were investigated and compared at various locations in the measurement plane. Estimates for the terms in the mean streamwise momentum and mean kinetic energy equation were computed, showing that the unique mean vertical velocity field of this wake, characterised by counter-rotating swirling motion, contributes significantly more to recovery than the turbulent transport. This result sheds light on previous CFT studies showing relatively fast downstream wake recovery compared to axial-flow turbines. Finally, predictions from a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulation with the commonly used actuator disk model were compared with the experimental results, evaluating its use as an engineering tool for studying flow in CFT arrays. Unsurprisingly, the model was not able to predict the near-wake structure accurately. This comparison highlights the need for improved parameterised engineering models to accurately predict the near-wake physics of CFTs.     

POD analysis of near-wake structures of an elliptic cylinder adjacent to a free surface

The POD (Proper Orthogonal Decomposition) method was used to investigate the near-wake behind an elliptic cylinder located under a free surface. For two different depths of cylinder submergence, the first four eigenmodes of the flow field were calculated and their structures were analyzed. The first four eigenmodes reveal the details about the global mean flow structure, with the large-scale structure being mainly related to the most energetic flow motion. The convergence of accumulated eigenvalues shows a slight dependence on the number of instantaneous velocity fields used in POD analysis.     

Stereoscopic PIV measurements of flow around a marine propeller

A stereoscopic PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) technique has been employed to measure the 3 dimensional flow structure of turbulent wake behind a marine propeller with 5 blades. The out-of-plane velocity component was measured using particle images captured simultaneously by two CCD cameras installed in the angular displacement configuration. 400 instantaneous velocity fields were acquired for each of four different blade phases of 0°, 18°, 36° and 54°. They were ensemble averaged to investigate the spatial evolution of propeller wake in the near wake region up to one propeller diameter (D) downstream. The phase-averaged velocity fields show clearly the viscous wake formed by the boundary layers developed along both surfaces of the blade. Tip vortices were generated periodically and the slipstream contraction occurs in the near-wake region. The out-of-plane velocity component has large values at the locations of tip and trailing vortices. With going downstream, the axial turbulence intensity and the strength of tip vortices were decreased due to the viscous dissipation, turbulence diffusion and blade-to-blade interaction. The difference in the mean velocity fields measured by SPIV and 2-D PIV methods was about 5% ≈ 10%. However, the 2-D PIV results also give sufficient information on propeller wake beyond the region of X/D=0.2.     

Dynamic analysis of bubble-driven liquid flows using time-resolved particle image velocimetry and proper orthogonal decomposition techniques

Abstract  

An experimental study to evaluate dynamic structures of flow motion and turbulence characteristics in bubble-driven water flow in a rectangular tank with a varying flow rate of compressed air is conducted. Liquid flow fields are measured by time-resolved particle image velocimetry (PIV) with fluorescent tracer particles to eliminate diffused reflections, and by an image intensifier to acquire enhanced clean particle images. By proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis, the energy distributions of spatial and temporal modes are acquired. Time-averaged velocity and turbulent kinetic energy distributions are varied with the air flow rates. With increasing Reynolds number, bubble-induced turbulent motion becomes dominant rather than the recirculating flow near the side wall. Detailed spatial structures and the unsteady behavior of dominant dynamic modes associated with turbulent kinetic energy distributions are addressed.     

Analysis of turbulent axisymmetric inner near wake

An analysis is presented describing the characteristics of mean velocity profile in the axisymmetric turbulent inner near-wake flow behind a body of revolution. The near wake is developing under zero streamwise pressure gradient and the upstream turbulent boundary layer is fully developed. It is shown that the boundary layer condition that exists at the trailing edge can be used to describe the mean velocity profiles in the inner near wake. It is shown that the logarithmic layer of the upstream turbulent boundary layer continues to be valid for some more distance in the near wake, and as the streamwise distance is increased, the logarithmic layer is slowly getting destroyed. It is also shown that the central line velocity exhibits a logarithmic behaviour for large streamwise distance. Results of the analysis have been validated using available experimental data.     

Numerical simulation and flow visualization using soap film of the self-organized vortex structure in the wake of an array of cylinders

Abstract  

With the aid of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and simple flow visualization technique using flowing soap-film, we present here the wake structures behind an array of cylinders for Reynolds numbers corresponding to both laminar and turbulent flow regimes. The image results illustrate interesting vortex interactions past these equally spaced cylinders; for low Reynolds number flow, well-organized wake pattern persists and manifests unsteadily to different symmetry states. An increase of free stream flow velocity causes the wake transition, resulting in the formation of asymmetric flow wake with chaotic mixing at the far wake. Observations from both the numerical simulations and soap-film are in good agreement at least qualitatively.     

Structure of the channel flow behind a surface-mounted rib under conditions of laminar-turbulent transition

The PIV technique was used to measure the instantaneous vector fields of flow velocity and vorticity behind a thin cross-flow rib installed in a channel with laminar, transient, or turbulent flow. The data were treated statistically to determine the fields of mean longitudinal flow velocity and the correlations of pulsating velocity components 〈u′ν′〉 and 〈u′u′〉. Some features of the flow structure developing under conditions of laminar-turbulent transition behind the rib have been revealed.     

Wake-boundary layer interaction behind an elliptic cylinder at different Reynolds numbers

In this paper, hot-wire anemometry (HWA) is used to experimentally investigate interactions between a fully developed turbulent boundary layer and wake of an elliptic cylinder where axis ratio (AR) of the cylinder is 2. The elliptic cylinder was located inside and outside a turbulent boundary layer with a thickness (δ) of 0.38B. Furthermore, experiments were conducted at different Reynolds numbers (13,250 and 26,500) based upon the smallest cylinder diameter (B). Mean velocity, turbulence intensity and higher-order central moments of velocity signals (i.e. skewness and flatness) measurements were performed using HWA upon wake-boundary layer interactions on a flat plate. Results showed that profiles of stream-wise mean velocity and turbulence intensity were greatly dependent on gap ratio (G/B) and Reynolds number (Re) in near-wake region. It was also observed that, except for G/B = 0.1, the wake-boundary layer interactions were faster at Reynolds number of 26,500 rather than 13,250. The interactions occurred earlier upon fluctuating the velocity rather than the case where a fixed mean velocity was considered. The results further show that an increase in the gap ratio increases Strouhal number almost independent of δ/B. Behind the cylinder, relatively smaller wake region was obtained at Re = 26,500 rather than Re = 13,250, where the velocity profiles quickly converged to the flat plate boundary layer velocity profiles.     

Experimental investigation of wake evolution behind a couple of flat discs in a hydrochannel

The decay of a far wake and its turbulent fluctuations behind two thin discs of the same diameter D, oriented normal to the incident flow, have been studied using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The experimental study was carried out in a water flume (Re ≈ 2·10⁵) with varying distances between the discs (L _х = 4–8D) and their axes shift relative to each other (0, 0.5D and 1D). It is found that the velocity deficit behind two discs depends weakly on L _x , and at L _х > 40D, it becomes indistinguishable from the level of turbulent fluctuations of the incident flow. It is found that the decay of the average velocity deficit and its turbulent fluctuations in a wake of a tandem of discs can be described by the same analytical dependence with exponent–2/3 as for the wake decay of a single disc. However, at the same distance downstream, the value of deficit behind two discs is substantially higher than the corresponding value behind a single disc. Velocity fluctuations in a far wake behind a pair of discs depend weakly on longitudinal dimension L _x , but at the same time, in contrast to the velocity deficit, their level does not differ significantly from the level of fluctuations behind a single disc.     

Flow visualization behind a streamwise oscillating cylinder and a stationary cylinder in tandem arrangement

Interference is investigated between a stationary cylinder wake and that of a downstream streamwise oscillating cylinder. Experiments were carried out in a water tunnel. A laser-induced fluorescence technique was used to visualize the flow structure behind two inline circular cylinders of identical diameterd. The downstream cylinder was forced to oscillate harmonically at the amplitude of 0.5d and the frequency ratiof _e f _s=1.8, wheref _e is the oscillation frequency of the downstream cylinder andf _s is the vortex shedding frequency from an isolated stationary cylinder. The investigation was conducted for the cylinder center-to-center spacingL/d=2.5 ∼ 4.5. Two flow regimes have been identified, i.e. the ‘single-cylinder shedding regime’ atL/d<-3.5 and the ‘two-cylinder shedding regime’ atL/d>3.5. At smallL/d, the upstream cylinder does not appear to shed vortices; vortices are symmetrically formed behind the downstream cylinder as a result of interactions between the shear layers separated from the upstream cylinder and the oscillation of the downstream cylinder. This is drastically different from that behind two stationary cylinders atL/d<-3.5, where vortices are shed alternately from the downstream cylinder only. AtL/d=4.5, both upstream and downstream cylinders shed vortices. This is true with or without the oscillation of the downstream cylinder. The flow structure is now totally different from that atL/d=3.5. The vortices are shed alternately from the upstream cylinder; a staggered spatial arrangement of vortices occurs behind the downstream cylinder.     

Characteristics of the plume particles removed by a swirling flow nozzle in laser ablation

The plume particles removed by a swirling flow nozzle in laser ablation have been characterized with numerical and experimental approaches in this paper. The swirling flow was simulated by a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software with RNG k–ε turbulent model. The air flow passed through a specifically designed swirling flow nozzle and impinged on the substrate with various inlet velocities. The trajectories of the plume particles with various diameters in the flow field were calculated and compared with the flow visualization in the experiments. The results show that the velocity distribution of the swirling flow on the substrate was significantly affected by the swirling strength of the flow. It shows that the plasma plume was removed efficiently and the surface roughness was significantly reduced by the implementation of swirling flow in laser ablation.     

Direct numerical simulation of a fully developed compressible wall turbulence over a wavy wall

Compressible turbulent channel flow over a wavy surface is investigated by direct numerical simulations using high-resolution finite difference schemes. The Reynolds number considered in the present paper is 3380 based on the bulk velocity, the channel half-width and the kinetic viscosity at the wall. Four test cases are simulated and analysed at Ma_m = 0.33, 0.8, 1.2, 1.5 based on the bulk velocity and the speed of sound at the wall. We mainly focus on the curvature and the Mach number effects on the compressible turbulent flows. Numerical results show that although the wavy wall has effects on the mean and fluctuation quantities, log law still exists in the distribution of the wave-averaged streamwise velocity if the roughness effects are taken into consideration in the scaling of it. Near-wall streaks are broken by the wavy surface and near-wall quasi-streamwise vortices mostly begin at the upslope of the wave and pass over the crest of it. The wavy wall makes the turbulence more active and the flow easier to be blended. From the viewpoint of turbulent kinetic budgets, curvature effects strengthen both the diffusion terms and the dissipation terms. At the same time, they change the properties of the compressibility-related terms and promote more inner energy transferring into turbulent kinetic energy. As the Mach number increases, the reattachment of the mean flow is delayed, which indicates the mean separation bubble becomes larger. Concerning the near-wall coherent structures, the vortices are more sparsely distributed with the increasing of the Mach number. For the supersonic cases, shock waves appear. Though they have little effects on the mean turbulent quantities, they change the structures of the flow fields and induce local separations at the upper wall of the channel.     

Direct numerical simulation of the flow around a wall-mounted square cylinder under various inflow conditions

The flow around a wall-mounted square cylinder of side d is investigated by means of direct numerical simulation (DNS). The effect of inflow conditions is assessed by considering two different cases with matching momentum-thickness Reynolds numbers Re_θ ? 1000 at the obstacle: the first case is a fullyturbulent zero pressure gradient boundary layer, and the second one is a laminar boundary layer with prescribed Blasius inflow profile further upstream. An auxiliary simulation carried out with the pseudo-spectral Fourier–Chebyshev code SIMSON is used to obtain the turbulent time-dependent inflow conditions which are then fed into the main simulation where the actual flow around the cylinder is computed. This main simulation is performed, for both laminar and turbulent-inflows, with the spectral-element method code Nek5000. In both cases the wake is completely turbulent, and we find the same Strouhal number St ? 0.1, although the two wakes exhibit structural differences for x > 3d downstream of the cylinder. Transition to turbulence is observed in the laminar-inflow case, induced by the recirculation bubble produced upstream of the obstacle, and in the turbulent-inflow simulation the streamwise fluctuations modulate the horseshoe vortex. The wake obtained in our laminar-inflow case is in closer agreement with reference particle image velocimetry measurements of the same geometry, revealing that the experimental boundary layer was not fully turbulent in that dataset, and highlighting the usefulness of DNS to assess the quality of experimental inflow conditions.     

Effect of gap flow on the shallow wake of a sharp-edged bluff body – mean velocity fields

This experimental study was carried out to investigate the turbulent shallow wake generated by a vertical sharp-edged flat plate suspended in a shallow channel flow with a gap near the bed. The objective of this study is to understand the effect of the gap flow on the wake by studying two different gap heights between the channel bed and the bottom edge of the bluff body. These two cases will be compared to the no-gap case which is considered as a reference case. The maximum flow velocity was 0.45 m/s and the Reynolds number based on the water depth was 45,000. Extensive measurements of the flow field in the vertical mid-plane and in the horizontal near-bed, mid-depth, and near-surface planes were made using particle image velocimetry. This paper is part of an extensive study to characterise the gap-flow effects and is primarily concerned with the mean velocity fields, while a companion paper discusses the turbulence characteristics. The size of the wake identified in the horizontal planes is found to vary in the three planes, where the gap flow enhances the entrainment in the near-wake region in the near-bed velocity field. The results also revealed that, if the gap flow is weak, it is engulfed by the recirculation zone formed just behind the bluff body whose axis is perpendicular to the vertical mid-plane. On the other hand, if the gap flow is relatively strong, it penetrates in the downstream direction and only a portion of it is diverted upward to feed the recirculation zone.     

Self-similarity of far wake behind tandem of two disks

In this work we used digital particle image visualization (PIV) to experimentally establish the self-similarity of far wake behind a tandem of two disks of a diameter D (300 mm) with a common axis along the incident flow. The research was performed in a water flume (Re ≈ 2 · 10⁵) with variation of L, the longitudinal dimension of the tandem. The self-similarity of the velocity profile in the wake behind the tandem has been established; the level of turbulent fluctuations of the profile has been measured. Due to the influence of the second disk, the velocity deficit in the wake behind the tandem exceeded the corresponding value for a single disk, being independent of the distance between the disks (L = 4–8D). The velocity fluctuations behind the tandem did not differ much from the level of fluctuations in the case of a single disk up to a distance of forty calibers downstream, where the wake ceased to differ from the background of natural turbulent fluctuations of the incident flow. It has been found that the position of the second disk in the tandem affects the energy loss in the wake due to its expansion but does not influence the decay. The revealed patterns in the wake development behind tandems of bodies will enable optimization of construction of systems of repetitive elements and their movement in different flows.     

Two-dimensional structure of the wake behind a pitching airfoil with higher non-dimensional pitching rate

Two-dimensional flow patterns have been visualized by two kinds of dyes and a VTR camera in a water tunnel atRe=4.0×10³ in order to study how flow patterns of vortex changed behind a pitching airfoil with various pitching rates and pitching amplitudes. The tested airfoil was NACA0010. The experiment was performed under the conditions such as the pitching motions with sinusoidal or triangular wave around its mid- or quarter-chord axis. The non-dimensional pitching rates werek=1.97, 2.81 and 4.22. The pitching amplitudes were changed asA=±2, ±6 and ±12, however the mean angle of attack was fixed atμ _m =0°. As a result, the followings were clarified. The flow pattern of thrust producing vortex street was observed in the wake behind the pitching airfoil with a higher nondimensional pitching rate. Similar flow patterns of the vortex were observed in spite of the differences in the location of pitching motion axis, in the pitching motion wave profile and in the pitching amplitude. Moreover, the pitching motion around the quarter-chord axis with triangular wave could realize the thrust producing vortex street more easily.