A global approach to analysis of fully developed turbulent flows in pipes/channels and zero pressure gradient boundary layers is proposed. A new dynamic definition of the boundary layer thickness $δ(x)$, where $x$ is the distance to the plate origin, is proposed. The Coles - Fernholtz empirical correlation for skin friction $λ=\frac{2τ_{w}}{ρU_{0}^{2}}\propto 1/\ln^{2}δ(x)$ and $δ(x)\propto x/\ln^{2}(\frac{x}{x_{0}})$ are derived from the Navier-Stokes equations in the limit $Re_{x}\to \infty$. Here $τ_{w}$ and $U_{0}$ are the wall shear stress and free stream velocity, respectively. The theory is formulated as an expansion in powers of a small dimensionless parameter $\frac{dδ(x)}{dx}\to 0$ in the limit $x\to \infty$.
In this paper, we derive mathematical formulas for the skin friction coefficient in wall-bounded turbulence based on the Reynolds averaged streamwise momentum equation and the total stress. Specially, with the theoretical or empirical relation of the total stress, the skin friction coefficient is expressed in terms of the mean velocity and the Reynolds shear stress in an arbitrary wall-normal region $[h_0, h_1]$. The formulas are validated using the direct numerical simulation data of turbulent channel and boundary layer flows, and the results show that our formulas estimate the skin friction …
The dynamics in the thin boundary layers of temperature and velocity is the key to a deeper understanding of turbulent transport of heat and momentum in thermal convection. The velocity gradient at the hot and cold plates of a Rayleigh-Bénard convection cell forms the two-dimensional skin friction field and is related to the formation of thermal plumes in the respective boundary layers. Our analysis is based on a direct numerical simulation of Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a closed cylindrical cell of aspect ratio $Γ=1$ and focused on the critical points of the skin friction field. We identify…
A global approach leading to a self-consistent solution to the Navier-Stokes-Prandtl equations for zero-pressure-gradient boundary layers is presented. It is shown that as $Re_δ\rightarrow \infty$, the dynamically defined boundary layer thickness $δ(x)\propto x/\ln^{2}Re_{x}$ and the skin friction $λ=\frac{2τ_{w}}{ρU_{0}^{2}}\propto 1/\ln^{2}δ(x)$. Here $τ_{w}$ and $U_{0}$ are the wall shear stress and free stream velocity, respectively. The theory is formulated as an expansion in powers of a small dimensionless parameter $\frac{dδ(x)}{dx}\rightarrow 0$ in the limit $x\rightarrow \infty$.
We investigate drag reduction due to the flow-induced reconfiguration of a flexible thin plate in presence of skin friction drag at low Reynolds Number. The plate is subjected to a uniform free stream and is tethered at one end. We extend existing models in the literature to account for the skin friction drag. The total drag on the plate with respect to a rigid upright plate decreases due to flow-induced reconfiguration and further reconfiguration increases the total drag due to increase in skin friction drag. A critical value of Cauchy number ($Ca$) exists at which the total drag on the plate…
An asymptotic $-1/2$ power-law scaling and a semi-empirical finite-$Re$ model were recently presented by Dixit et al. (2020) for skin friction in zero-pressure-gradient (ZPG) turbulent boundary layers (TBLs). In this work, a new derivation is presented which shows that these relations (i) fundamentally represent a dynamically-consistent scaling of skin friction for nominally two-dimensional ZPG TBLs and fully-developed pipes and channels, and (ii) apply individually to each of these flows. The new theoretical arguments are based on transfer of kinetic energy from mean flow to large eddies of t…
Skin friction prediction for attached flows based on two-dimensional inviscid solutions
School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University（西北工业大学航空学院）；International Joint Institute of Intelligent Fluid Mechanics, Northwestern Polytechnical University（西北工业大学智能流体力学国际联合研究院）；National Key Laboratory of Aircraft Configuration Design（飞机构型设计国家重点实验室）
Dimples are small concavities imprinted on a flat surface, known to affect heat transfer and also flow separation and aerodynamic drag on bluff bodies when acting as a standard roughness. Recently, dimples have been proposed as a roughness pattern that is capable to reduce the turbulent drag of a flat plate, by providing a reduction of skin friction that compensates the dimple-induced pressure drag, and leads to a global benefit. The question whether dimples do actually work to reduce friction drag is still unsettled. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of the available informatio…
Boundary-layer transition is accompanied by a significant increase in skin friction whose origin is rigorously explained using the stochastic Lagrangian formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations. This formulation permits the exact analysis of vorticity dynamics in individual realizations of a viscous incompressible fluid flow. The Lagrangian reconstruction formula for vorticity is here extended for the first time to Neumann boundary conditions (Lighthill source). We can thus express the wall vorticity, and therefore the wall stress, as the expectation of a stochastic Cauchy invariant in backw…
We show that the Fukagata et al. (2002)'s identity for free-stream boundary layers simplifies to the von Karman momentum integral equation relating the skin-friction coefficient and the momentum thickness when the upper bound in the integrals used to obtain the identity is taken to be asymptotically large. If a finite upper bound is used, the terms of the identity depend spuriously on the bound itself. Differently from channel and pipe flows, the impact of the Reynolds stresses on the wall-shear stress cannot be quantified in the case of free-stream boundary layers because the Reynolds stresse…
Direct numerical simulations of fully-developed turbulent channel flows with wavy walls are undertaken. The wavy walls, skewed with respect to the mean flow direction, are introduced as a means of emulating a Spatial Stokes Layer (SSL) induced by in-plane wall motion. The transverse shear strain above the wavy wall is shown to be similar to that of a SSL, thereby affecting the turbulent flow, and leading to a reduction in the turbulent skin-friction drag. The pressure- and friction-drag levels are carefully quantified for various flow configurations, exhibiting a combined maximum overall-drag …
The near-wall cycle for skin-friction generation revealed through explainable deep learning
Instituto Universitario de Matemática Pura y Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de València（纯数学与应用数学大学研究所，瓦伦西亚理工大学）；Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan（密歇根大学航空航天工程系）
Since it is difficult to apply the existing method of friction and heat flux decomposition on the complex surface, a combined decomposition method of friction and heat flux with clear physical interpretation is proposed, which is based on FIK and RD decomposition method and can be applied to arbitrary surface. Based on this method, the aerothermodynamic characteristics of bistable states of curved compression ramps are analyzed from the perspective of energy transformation. The results show that the decrease of friction in the interaction region of the attachment state and the minimum values o…
A zonal similarity analysis of friction factors in pipe flow of power law fluids is presented. It uses the critical Reynolds number and friction factor at transition as estimates of the normalised velocity and distance between the wall and log-law layers and successfully collapses both Newtonian and non-Newtonian data for laminar, transition and turbulent flows. Key words: zonal similarity analysis, friction factor, Reynolds number, transition
The scope of the present project is to quantify the effects of uniform blowing and body-force damping on turbulent boundary layers subjected to a non-uniform adverse-pressure-gradient distribution. To this end, well-resolved large-eddy simulations are employed to describe the flow around the NACA4412 airfoil at moderate Reynolds number 200, 000 based on freestream velocity and chord length. In the present paper we focus on uniform blowing and the conference presentation will include a comparison with body-force damping applied in the same region. The inner-scaled profiles of the mean velocity …
This paper examines how increasing the value of the Reynolds number $Re$ affects the ability of spanwise-forcing techniques to yield turbulent skin-friction drag reduction. The considered forcing is based on the streamwise-travelling waves of spanwise wall velocity (Quadrio {\em et al. J. Fluid Mech.}, vol. 627, 2009, pp. 161--178). The study builds upon an extensive drag-reduction database created with Direct Numerical Simulation of a turbulent channel flow for two, 5-fold separated values of $Re$, namely $Re_τ=200$ and $Re_τ=1000$. The sheer size of the database, which for the first time sys…
The quest for reductions in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in transport has been a powerful driving force for scientific research into methods that might underpin drag-reducing technologies for a variety of vehicular transport on roads, by rail, in the air, and on or in the water. In civil aviation, skin-friction drag accounts for around 50% of the total drag in cruise conditions, thus being a preferential target for research. With laminar conditions excluded, skin friction is intimately linked to the turbulence physics in the fluid layer closest to the skin. Thus, research into drag reduc…
Turbulence intensity profiles are compared for smooth- and rough-wall pipe flow measurements made in the Princeton Superpipe. The profile development in the transition from hydraulically smooth to fully rough flow displays a propagating sequence from the pipe wall towards the pipe axis. The scaling of turbulence intensity with Reynolds number shows that the smooth- and rough wall level deviates with increasing Reynolds number. We quantify the correspondence between turbulence intensity and the friction factor.
The temperature fluctuations generated by viscous dissipation in an isotropic turbulent flow are studied using direct numerical simulation. It is shown that their scaling with Reynolds number is at odds with predictions from recent investigations. The origin of the discrepancy is traced back to the anomalous scaling of the dissipation rate fluctuations. Phenomenological arguments are presented which explain the observed results. The study shows that previously proposed models underpredict the variance of frictional temperature fluctuations by a factor proportional to the square of the Taylor-s…
Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of fully-developed turbulent channel flows for very low Reynolds numbers have been performed with a larger computational box sizes than those of existing DNS. The friction Reynolds number was decreased down to 60, where the friction Reynolds number is based on the friction velocity and the channel half width. When the Reynolds number was decreased to 60 with small computational box size, the flow became laminar. Using a large box, we found that a localized turbulence was observed to sustain in the form of periodic oblique band. This type of locally disordered…
The evolution with Reynolds number of the dissipation function, normalized by wall variables, is investigated using direct numerical simulation (DNS) databases for incompressible turbulent Poiseuille flow in a plane channel, at friction Reynolds numbers up to Reτ= 2000. DNS results show that the mean part, directly dissipated by the mean flow, reaches a constant value while the turbulent part, converted into turbulent kinetic energy before being dissipated, follows a logarithmic law. This result shows that the logarithmic law of friction can be obtained without any assumption on the mean veloc…
The impact of wall roughness on fully developed laminar pipe flow is investigated numerically. The roughness is comprised of square bars of varying size and pitch. Results show that the inverse relation between the friction factor and the Reynolds number in smooth pipes still persists in rough pipes, regardless of the rib height and pitch. At a given Reynolds number, the friction factor varies quadratically with roughness height and linearly with roughness pitch. We propose a single correlation for the friction factor that successfully collapses the data.
A numerical investigation of two locally applied drag reducing control schemes is carried out in the configuration of a spatially developing turbulent boundary layer (TBL). One control is designed to damp near-wall turbulence and the other induces constant mass flux in the wall-normal direction. Both control schemes yield similar local drag reduction rates within the control region. However, the flow development downstream of the control significantly differs: persistent drag reduction is found for the uniform blowing case whereas drag increase is found for the turbulence damping case. In orde…
In this work, the friction factor for steady periodically developed flow through micro-and mini-channels with periodic arrays of offset strip fins is analyzed. The friction factor is studied numerically on a unit cell of the array for Reynolds numbers ranging from 1 to 600, and fin height-to-length ratios below 1. It is shown that the friction factor correlations from the literature, which primarily focus on larger conventional offset strip fin geometries in the transitional flow regime, do not predict the correct trends for laminar flow in micro-and mini-channels. Therefore, a new friction fa…
In this paper, the relation between skin friction and heat transfer along windward sides of blunt-nosed bodies in hypersonic flows is investigated. The self-similar boundary layer analysis is accepted to figure out the distribution of the ratio of skin friction to heat transfer coefficients along the wall. It is theoretically obtained that the ratio depends linearly on the local slope angle of the wall surface, and an explicit analogy expression is presented for circular cylinders, although the linear distribution is also found for other nose shapes and even in gas flows with chemical reaction…
The power laws in the overlap region of two layer theory of turbulent boundary layer have been obtained by Izakson-Millikan-Kolmogorov hypothesis. The solution of the open functional equation is not unique. The power laws for velocity \& skin friction have equivalence with log laws for velocity \& skin friction, for large Reynolds numbers.
In the present study, we use a fifth-order ordinary differential equation, a generalization of the Blasius equation derived from the Leray-alpha model, to examine the transition to turbulence in rough-wall boundary-layer flows. This equation, combined with a weaker formulation of the von Karman log law modified to include the effects of surface roughness, provides a family of turbulent velocity profiles with two free parameters: the momentum thickness based Reynolds number and the roughness function. As a result, a skin-friction correlation is obtained and predictions of the transitional Reyno…
In wall-modeled large-eddy simulations (WMLES), the near-wall model plays a significant role in predicting the skin friction, although the majority of the boundary layer is resolved by the outer large-eddy simulation (LES) solver. In this work, we aim at developing a new ordinary differential equation (ODE)-based wall model, which is as simple as the classical equilibrium model yet capable of capturing non-equilibrium effects and low Reynolds number effects. The proposed model reformulates the classical equilibrium model by introducing a new non-dimensional mixing-length function. The new mixi…
Experiments and numerical simulations reveal that in the forward cascade regime, the energy spectrum of two-dimensional turbulence with Ekman friction deviates from Kraichnan's prediction of $k^{-3}$ power spectrum. In this letter we explain this observation using an analytic model based on variable enstrophy flux arising due to Ekman friction. We derive an expression for the enstrophy flux which exhibits a logarithmic dependence in the inertial range for the Ekman-friction dominated flows. The energy spectrum obtained using this enstrophy flux shows a power law scaling for large Reynolds numb…
We carry out Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of flows in closed rectangular ducts with several aspect ratios. The Navier-Stokes equations are discretized through a second-order finite difference scheme, with non-uniform grids in two directions. The duct cross-sectional area is maintained constant as well as the flow rate, which allows to investigate which is the appropriate length scale in the Reynolds number for a good scaling in the laminar and in the fully turbulent regimes. We find that the Reynolds number based on the half length of the short side leads to a critical Reynolds number whi…
This work studies the effects of skin-friction drag reduction in a turbulent flow over a curved wall, with a view to understanding the relationship between the reduction of friction and changes to the total aerodynamic drag. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) are carried out for an incompressible turbulent flow in a channel where one wall has a small bump; two bump geometries are considered, that produce mildly separated and attached flows. Friction drag reduction is achieved by applying streamwise-travelling waves of spanwise velocity (StTW). The local friction reduction produced by the StTW …
We study streamwise turbulence intensity definitions using smooth- and rough-wall pipe flow measurements made in the Princeton Superpipe. Scaling of turbulence intensity with the bulk (and friction) Reynolds number is provided for the definitions. The turbulence intensity scales with the friction factor for both smooth- and rough-wall pipe flow. Turbulence intensity definitions providing the best description of the measurements are identified. A procedure to calculate the turbulence intensity based on the bulk Reynolds number (and the sand-grain roughness for rough-wall pipe flow) is outlined.
Inspired by the lotus effect, many studies in the last decade have focused on micro- and nano-patterned surfaces. They revealed that patterns at the micro-scale combined with high contact angles can significantly reduce skin drag. However, the mechanisms and parameters that control drag reduction, e.g. Reynolds number and pattern geometry, are still unclear. We propose an effective medium representation of the micro-features, that treats the latter as a porous medium, and provides a framework to model flow over patterned surfaces in both Cassie and Wenzel states. Our key result is a closed-for…
The multiphase flow mechanism in miscible displacement through porous media is an important topic in various applications, such as petroleum engineering, low Reynolds number suspension flows, dusty gas dynamics, and fluidized beds. To simulate such flows, volume averaging spatial operators are considered to incorporate pressure drag and skin friction experienced by a porous medium. In this work, a streamline-based Lagrangian methodology is extended for an efficient numerical approach to handle dispersion and diffusion of solvent saturation during a miscible flow. Overall pressure drag on the d…
A theoretical description of the phenomenon of modulation of near-wall turbulence by large scale structures is investigated. The description given is simple in that the effect of large-scale structures is limited to a quasi-steady response of the near-wall turbulence to slow large-scale fluctuations of the skin friction. The most natural and compact form of expressing this mechanism is given by the usual Reynolds-number-independent representation of the total skin friction and velocity, scaled in wall variables, where the mean quantities are replaced by large-scale low-pass-filtered fluctuatin…
Large-eddy simulation of incompressible turbulent flow has been extensively investigated; hence, a variety of models suited for different numerical schemes have been developed. In the case of compressible flow, the modeling is more challenging due to the numerous terms that arise in the filtered Navier-Stokes equations. Recently, modal explicit filtering was implemented in the discontinuous spectral element method (DSEM) to mimic the effects of sub-filtered scales for compressible flows. The method is computationally inexpensive since it is implemented in the DSEM code using a well-established…
Drawing on an analogy to critical phenomena, it was shown that the Nikuradse turbulent friction factor ($f_t$) measurements in pipes of radius $R$ and wall roughness $r$ can be collapsed onto a one-dimensional curve expressed as a conveyance law $f_t Re^{1/4}=g_o(χ)$, where $Re$ is a bulk Reynolds number, $χ=Re^{3/4}\left({r}/{R}\right)$. The implicit function $g_o(.)$ was conjectured based on matching two asymptotic limits of $f_t$. However, the connection between $g_o(.)$ and the phenomenon it proclaims to represent - turbulent eddies - remains lacking. Using models for the wall-normal veloc…
The effect of the wind of Rayleigh-Benard convection on the boundary layers is studied by direct numerical simulation of an L/H=4 aspect-ratio domain with periodic side boundary conditions for Ra={10^5, 10^6, 10^7} and Pr=1. It is shown that the kinetic boundary layers on the top- and bottom plate have some features of both laminar and turbulent boundary layers. A continuous spectrum, as well as significant forcing due to Reynolds stresses indicates undoubtedly a turbulent character, whereas the classical integral boundary layer parameters -- the shape factor and friction factor (the latter is…
