Chapter2 Wall-Bounded-Flow
Chapter2 Wall-Bounded-Flow
May 5, 2010
Although this region occupies a small portion of the total flow field, it
cannot be negelected. The study of boundary layers is important for the
calculation of skin friction drag, transition to turbulence and flow separa-
tion among others. Near-wall flows can be either laminar or turbulent. In
laminar wall-bounded flows, acceleration/deceleration takes place in layers
or laminates of fluid that interact with each other through molecular viscos-
ity. Most wall-bounded flows of practical concern are turbulent. Turbulent
flows are characterized by eddies or swirls of fluid that vary in space and
time. Figure 2 shows various configurations of wall-bounded flows, where d
1
2
Z u Z y
τw
du = dy (5)
0 ρν 0
from which we can get, q q
u = τρν
wy
= u2τ νy ⇒ uuτ = yuτ
ν
where uτ = ν( ∂u
∂y
)w = τw
ρ
and w stands for
wall or y=0.
du+ +
τ+ = +
− u0 v 0 = 1 (7)
dy
This implies that all dependence on x (streamwise coordinate) is included
in uτ .
u yuτ
= = f (y + ) (9)
uτ ν
Logically, the velocity profiles of inner and outer layers should match in
the overlap layer. But instead of matching the velocities of inner and outer
layers, it is more convenient to match their gradients. From equations (9)
and (8), the velocity gradients in the inner and outer layers are given as,
dU u2 df
= τ +, (10)
dy ν dy
dU uτ dF
= . (11)
dy δ dη
where η = y/δ. Equating equation(10) and equation(11), and multiplying
by y/uτ , we get,
dF df 1
η = y+ + = (12)
dη dy κ
The term on left hand side is a function of η only and the term on right
hand side is a function of y + only, both sides therefore must be equal to some
universal constant, 1/κ, where κ is the Von Karman constant. Experimen-
tally, k ∼ 0.41. Integrating equation (12) yields,
1
f (y + ) = ln y + + A, (13)
κ
1
F (η) = ln η + B. (14)
κ
Experiments show that A = 5.0 and B = -1.0 for a smooth flat plate,
hence we can write equations (13) and (14) as,
u 1 yuτ
= ln + 5.0, (15)
uτ κ ν
Ue − u 1 y
= ln − 1.0 (16)
uτ κ δ
These equations are valid only for large y + and small y/δ. Due to the
logarithmic form of the velocity profile, the overlap layer is also called the
logarithmic layer. The above-mentioned logarithmic layer equation was first
derived by Clark.B.Millikan in 1938.
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Ue − U y −u0 v 0 y
= f ( ), = g 12 ( )
uτ ∆ u2τ ∆
u0 2 y v02 y
2
= g11 ( ), 2
= g22 ( )
uτ ∆ uτ ∆
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For velocity and Reynolds stresses, uτ has classically been used as internal
scale and Ue as external scale because all wall-bounded flows have distinct
p
inner and outer regions. Here uτ is the friction velocity defined as τw /ρ
and Ue is the local freestream flow velocity. Near separation, uτ becomes zero
and thus the wall-unit scaling becomes difficult to implement. In most cases,
the inner velocity scaling based on uτ was unable to collapse the velocity
and Reynolds stress profiles in the outer layer and thus an effect of Reynolds
number was evident in the normalised profiles.
For length, the classical inner scaling has been uτ /ν and the boundary
layer thickness δ as outer scale. Owing to the difficulty of precisely mea-
suring boundary layer thickness, especially over curved surfaces, many re-
searchers have instead preferred to use boundary layer momentum thickness
θ or dispalcement thickness δ ∗ as length scales because these are integral
quantites and relatively easy to compute. Clauser (1954) originally proposed
∆ = (δ ∗ Ue /uτ ) as the length scale but it was largely replaced by boundary
layer thickness δ. The usual length scales for fully-developped channel flow,
fully-developped pipe flows and bumps/humps/ramps are the half-channel
height H, diameter D and maximum height h respectively. According to
Pope (2000), a flow is fully-developped when the velocity statistics no longer
change with streamwise coordinate.
Castillo & George (2001) reconsidered the similarity analysis of the tur-
bulent boundary layer and suggested outer velocity scales as Ue , Ue2 and
Ue2 dδ/dx for the velocity defect, Reynolds normal stress and Reynolds shear
stress respectively. Thus their similarity analysis took the following form:
Ue − U y −u0 v 0 y
= f ( ), dδ
= g 12 ( ),
Ue δ Ue2 ( dx ) δ
u0 2 y v02 y
= g11 ( ), = g 22 ( )
Ue2 δ Ue2 δ
The validity of Ue , Ue2 and Ue2 dδ/dx as outer velocity scales was put in
question by Maciel et al. (2006a) for flows with strong streamwise pressure
gradients. They pointed out that Reynolds stresses scaled with Ue2 can grow
by an order of magnitude for a flow experiencing a strong favorable pressure
gradient and then a strong adverse pressure gradient like on the suction side
of an airfoil.
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Zagarola & Smits (1998) proposed Uc − Ub as the outer velocity scale for
turbulent pipe flow, where Uc is the centreline velocity and Ub is the bulk
mean velocity. They showed that Uc − Ub is better than uτ for collapsing
the velocity defect profiles. For turbulent boundary layers, they proposed
an equivalent scale Ue δ ∗ /δ, which proved to be a valid scale for the outer
layer. Their scale, Uzs , not only removed Reynolds number effects but also
the upstream condition effects were also noted to disappear. Later Maciel
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et al. (2006b) showed that Uzs is a valid scale for Reynolds stresses. To com-
plement the Zagarola & Smits (1998) velocity scale Uzs , Maciel et al. (2006a)
replaced uτ by Uzs to get ∆zs = Ue δ ∗ /Uzs , which is the same as boundary
layer thickness δ.
DeGraaff & Eaton (2000) proposed a mixed scaling uτ Ue for the Reynolds
stresses but scaling was found not to be universal in the outer region of the
boundary layer. They did notice however the disappearance of Reynolds
number effects with the mixed scaling.
Stanislas et al. (2008) carried out stereo PIV experiments of flat plate
turbulent boundary layer over a range of Reynolds number Reθ from 7800
to 15000. They argued that if Kolmogorov scales determines the friction
at the wall and if they are more representative of dissipation than , then
they should replace the viscosity ν as a scale. The viscosity shall then be-
come a kind of ‘turbulence thermodynamic’ quantity by contributing towards
Kolmogorov scale (η). They found that very near to the wall, the ratio of
Kolmogorov scales to the integral scales is of order 1 and thus near the wall
the Kolmogorov scale η should be used as a length scale. They plotted the
mean velocity U/Ue as a function of y/η and obtained a good collapse near
the wall. However, a good collapse was not observed in the outer layer and
to use δ as the outer length scale, they defined a new length scale η ∗ in form:
∗ δ
η = min η, . (17)
A
Here A is of the order of 1000. The function was designed such that δ
shall take over as a length scale if Kolmogorov scale η is greater than δ/1000.
Therefore, as summarised above, the existence of a plethora of velocity,
length and stress scales proves that we are still far from having a single
universally accepted set of scales for turbulent wall-bounded flows.
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Theodorsen (1952) was the first to propose the presence of hairpin vor-
tices attached to the wall in the incompressible turbulent boundary layers but
later in the twentieth century, advanced experimental and numerical tech-
niques like PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) and DNS (Direct Numerical
Simulation) permitted a further insight into vortical structures of near-wall
flows.
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They also found that the mean advection velocity of spanwise vortices was
equal to the local mean flow velocity. Carlier & Stanislas (2005), using signed
swirling strength education criteria, detected dense populations of prograde
and retrograde vortices with prograde vortices mostly found near the wall
and decreasing with wall normal distance. Retrograde vortices, on the other
hand, were found to increase with wall-normal distance till the top of the log
layer and then found to decrease further upwards. Wu & Christensen (2006)
also performed a PIV study on vortical structures and obtained almost the
same results regarding effects of Reynolds number, prograde and retrograde
vortices and advection velocities of vortices.
Using the DNS database of Spalart (1988), Robinson (1991b) found that
the number density of vortices is maximum at y + ≈ 10 − 50, the vortex
core radius ro+ ≈ 5 − 20 and the circulation Γ+ = (Γ/ν) ≈ 60 − 250. del
Álamo et al. (2006) performed a DNS of turbulent channel flow and classi-
fied the population of vortices into two groups of wall-detached eddies and
attached eddies, in terms of their dependance on the distance from the wall.
The typical size of the wall-detached eddy was found to be of order of the
Kolmogorov length scale (η), and not to depend on the distance from the
wall. The second group of the Townsend’s wall-attached eddies was found
to closely resemble the hairpins as described by Adrian et al. (2000). Das
et al. (2006) performed DNS of channel flow at Reτ upto 1270 and found out
that the size of vortices ranges from 6 and 90η. For validation, they fitted a
Burgers vortex model to the detected vortices.
to estimate the radius of educed vortices and found that all three methods
were in good agreement. Through one- and two-point LSE, they proposed
that the most probable form of streamwise vortices is strongly asymmetri-
cal and resembles a cane or hook rather than an hairpin. The mean radius
of vortices was found to be around 6η with a range from 1 to 30η. The
mean vorticity was found to be about 1.6τ −1 with a range from 0 to 10τ −1 .
With Kolmogorov scaling, they found that distributions of vortex mean ra-
dius and vorticity are independent of the wall-normal location of the vortex
centre. For the origin of vortices, they found that most of the vortices are
created near the wall and are then lifted up away from it.
References
Adrian, R., Meinhart, C. & Tomkins, C., 2000 Vortex organization in
the outer layer of the turbulent boundary layer. J. Fluid Mech. 422, 1–54.
Castillo, L. & George, W., 2001 Similarity analysis for turbulent bound-
ary layers with pressure gradient: Outer flow. AIAA J. 39, 41–47.
Das, S. K., Tanahashi, M., Shoji, K. & Miyauchi, T., 2006 Statistical
properties of coherent fine eddies in wall-bounded turbulent flows by direct
numerical simulation. Theor. Comput. Fluid. Dyn. 20 (2), 55–71.
del Álamo, J. C., Jiménez, J., Zandonade, P. & Moser, R. D., 2006
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329–358.
Jiménez, J., WRAY, A., SAFFMAN, P. & ROGALLO, R., 1993 The
structure of intense vorticity in isotropic turbulence. J. Fluid Mech. 255,
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Maciel, Y., Rossignol, K.-S. & Lemay, J., 2006a Similarity in the
outer region of adverse-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers. AIAA
Journal 44 (11), 2450–2464.
Maciel, Y., Rossignol, K.-S. & Lemay, J., 2006b A study of a turbu-
lent boundary layer in stalled-airfoil-type flow conditions. Experiments in
Fluids 41, 573–590.
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