Analytical and experimental studies of plant-flow interaction at multiple scales

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-171).Across scales ranging from individual blades to river reaches, the interaction between water flow and vegetation has important ecological and engineering implications. At the reach-scale, vegetation is often the largest source of hydraulic resistance. Based on a simple momentum balance, we show that the resistance produced by vegetation depends primarily on the fraction of the channel cross-section blocked by vegetation. For the same blockage, the specific distribution of vegetation also plays a role; a large number of small patches generates more resistance than a single large patch. At the patch-scale, velocity and turbulence levels within the canopy set water renewal and sediment resuspension. We consider both steady currents and wave-induced flows. For steady flows, the flow structure is significantly affected by canopy density. We define sparse and dense canopies based on the relative contribution of turbulent stress and canopy drag to the momentum balance. Within sparse canopies, velocity and turbulent stress remain elevated and the rate of sediment suspension is comparable to that in unvegetated regions. Within dense canopies, velocity and turbulent stress are reduced by canopy drag, and the rate of sediment resuspension is lower. Unlike steady flows, wave-induced oscillatory flows are not significantly damped within vegetated canopies. Further, our laboratory and field measurements show that, despite being driven by a purely oscillatory flow, a mean current in the direction of wave propagation is generated within the canopy. This mean current is forced by a wave stress, similar to the streaming observed in wave boundary layers. At the blade-scale, plant-flow interaction sets posture and drag. Through laboratory experiments and numerical simulations, we show that posture is set by a balance between the hydrodynamic forcing and the restoring forces due to blade stiffness and buoyancy. When the hydrodynamic forcing is small compared to the restoring forces, the blades remain upright in flow and a standard quadratic law predicts the relationship between drag and velocity. When the hydrodynamic forcing exceeds the restoring forces, the blades are pushed over in steady flow, and move with oscillatory flow. For this limit, we develop new scaling laws that link drag with velocity.by Mitul Luhar.Ph.D

Connections between propulsive efficiency and wake structure via modal decomposition

We present experiments on oscillating hydrofoils undergoing combined heaving and pitching motions, paying particular attention to connections between propulsive efficiency and coherent wake features extracted using modal analysis. Time-averaged forces and particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements of the flow field downstream of the foil are presented for a Reynolds number of Re=11$\times$10$^3$ and Strouhal numbers in the range St=0.16-0.35. These conditions produce 2S and 2P wake patterns, as well as a near-momentumless wake structure. A triple decomposition using the optimized dynamic mode decomposition (opt-DMD) method is employed to identify dominant modal components (or coherent structures) in the wake. These structures can be connected to wake instabilities predicted using spatial stability analyses. Examining the modal components of the wake provides insightful explanations into the transition from drag to thrust production, and conditions that lead to peak propulsive efficiency. In particular, we find modes that correspond to the primary vortex development in the wakes. Other modal components capture elements of bluff body shedding at Strouhal numbers below the optimum for peak propulsive efficiency and characteristics of separation for Strouhal numbers higher than the optimum.Comment: 28 pages, 14 figure

Turbulent flows over porous lattices: alteration of near-wall turbulence and pore-flow amplitude modulation

Turbulent flows over porous lattices consisting of rectangular cuboid pores are investigated using scale-resolving direct numerical simulations. Beyond a certain threshold which is primarily determined by the wall-normal Darcy permeability, ${K_y}^+$, near-wall turbulence transitions from its canonical regime, marked by the presence of streak-like structures, to another marked by the presence of spanwise coherent structures reminiscent of the Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) type of instability. This permeability threshold agrees well with that previously established in studies where permeable-wall boundary conditions had been used as surrogates for a porous substrate. None of the substrates investigated demonstrate any drag reduction relative to smooth-wall turbulent flow. At the permeable surface, a significant component of the flow is that which adheres to the pore geometry and undergoes amplitude modulation (AM). This pore-coherent flow remains notable within the substrates, highlighting the importance of the porous substrate's microstructure when the overlying flow is turbulent, an aspect which cannot be accounted for when using continuum-based approaches to model porous media flows or effective representations such as wall boundary conditions. The severity of the AM is enhanced in the K-H-like regime, which has implications when designing porous substrates for transport processes. This suggests that the surface of the substrate can have a geometry which is different than the rest of it and tailored to influence the overlying flow in a particular way