The triple decomposition of a fluctuating velocity field in a multiscale flow

A new method for the triple decomposition of a multiscale flow, which is based on the novel optimal mode decomposition (OMD) technique, is presented. OMD provides low order linear dynamics, which fits a given data set in an optimal way and is used to distinguish between a coherent (periodic) part of a flow and a stochastic fluctuation. The method needs no external phase indication since this information, separate for coherent structures associated with each length scale introduced into the flow, appears as the output. The proposed technique is compared against two traditional methods of the triple decomposition, i.e., bin averaging and proper orthogonal decomposition. This is done with particle image velocimetry data documenting the near wake of a multiscale bar array. It is shown that both traditional methods are unable to provide a reliable estimation for the coherent fluctuation while the proposed technique performs very well. The crucial result is that the coherence peaks are not observed within the spectral properties of the stochastic fluctuation derived with the proposed method; however, these properties remain unaltered at the residual frequencies. This proves the method’s capability of making a distinction between both types of fluctuations. The sensitivity to some prescribed parameters is checked revealing the technique’s robustness. Additionally, an example of the method application for analysis of a multiscale flow is given, i.e., the phase conditioned transverse integral length is investigated in the near wake region of the multiscale object array

A robust post-processing method to determine skin friction in turbulent boundary layers from the velocity profile

The present paper describes a method to extrapolate the mean wall shear stress, , and the accurate relative position of a velocity probe with respect to the wall, Δ, from an experimentally measured mean velocity profile in a turbulent boundary layer. Validation is made between experimental and direct numerical simulation data of turbulent boundary layer flows with independent measurement of the shear stress. The set of parameters which minimize the residual error with respect to the canonical description of the boundary layer profile is taken as the solution. Several methods are compared, testing different descriptions of the canonical mean velocity profile (with and without overshoot over the logarithmic law) and different definitions of the residual function of the optimization. The von Kármán constant is used as a parameter of the fitting process in order to avoid any hypothesis regarding its value that may be affected by different initial or boundary conditions of the flow. Results show that the best method provides an accuracy of Δ≤0.6% for the estimation of the friction velocity and Δ+≤0.3 for the position of the wall. The robustness of the method is tested including unconverged near-wall measurements, pressure gradient, and reduced number of points; the importance of the location of the first point is also tested, and it is shown that the method presents a high robustness even in highly distorted flows, keeping the aforementioned accuracies if one acquires at least one data point in +<10. The wake component and the thickness of the boundary layer are also simultaneously extrapolated from the mean velocity profile. This results in the first study, to the knowledge of the authors, where a five-parameter fitting is carried out without any assumption on the von Kármán constant and the limits of the logarithmic layer further from its existence

Heat transfer from a flat plate in inhomogeneous regions of grid-generated turbulence

Experiments on the convective heat transfer from a flat plate, vertically mounted and parallel to the flow in a wind tunnel, were carried out via Infra-Red thermography and hot-wire anemometry. The Reynolds number based on the inflow velocity and on the length of the plate was about 5×1055×105. A step near the leading edge of the plate was used to promote transition to turbulence, with tripping effects on the heat transfer coefficients shown to be negligible for more than 90% of the plate’s length. Different types of grids, all with same blockage ratio σg=28%σg=28%, were placed upstream of the plate to investigate their potential to enhance the turbulent heat transfer. These grids were of three classes: regular square-mesh grids (RGs), single-square grids (SSGs) and multi-scale inhomogeneous grids (MIGs). The heat transfer coefficients at the mid-length of the plate were correlated with the mean velocity and the turbulence intensity of the flow at a distance from the plate at which the ratio of the standard deviations of the streamwise and wall-normal velocity fluctuations began to increase. However, the heat transfer was shown to be insensitive to the turbulence intensity of the incoming flow in close proximity of the tripping step. Furthermore, the integral length scale of the streamwise turbulent fluctuations was found not to affect the heat transfer results, both near the tripping step and in the well-developed region on the plate. For the smallest plate-to-grid distance, the strongest heat transfer enhancement (by roughly 30%) with respect to the no-grid case was achieved with one of the SSGs. For the largest plate-to-grid distance, the only grid producing an appreciable increase (by approximately 10%) of the heat transfer was one of the MIGs. The present results demonstrate that MIG design can be optimised to maximise the overall heat transfer from the plate. A MIG that produces a uniform transverse mean shear, which is approximately preserved over significant downstream distances from the grid and with a velocity decreasing with distance from the plate, allows a sustained heat transfer enhancement, in contrast to all other grid designs tested here. The most efficient configuration for a MIG is one for which the section of the grid that has lower blockage and thicker bars is adjacent to the plate

Flow characteristics and scaling past highly porous wall-mounted fences

An extensive characterization of the flow past wall-mounted highly porous fences based on single- and multi-scale geometries has been performed using hot-wire anemometry in a low-speed wind tunnel. Whilst drag properties (estimated from the time-averaged momentum equation) seem to be mostly dependent on the grids’ blockage ratio; wakes of different size and orientation bars seem to generate distinct behaviours regarding turbulence properties. Far from the near-grid region, the flow is dominated by the presence of two well-differentiated layers: one close to the wall dominated by the near-wall behaviour and another one corresponding to the grid’s wake and shear layer, originating from between this and the freestream. It is proposed that the effective thickness of the wall layer can be inferred from the wall-normal profile of root-mean-square streamwise velocity or, alternatively, from the wall-normal profile of streamwise velocity correlation. Using these definitions of wall-layer thickness enables us to collapse different trends of the turbulence behaviour inside this layer. In particular, the root-mean-square level of the wall shear stress fluctuations, longitudinal integral length scale, and spanwise turbulent structure is shown to display a satisfactory scaling with this thickness rather than with the whole thickness of the grid’s wake. Moreover, it is shown that certain grids destroy the spanwise arrangement of large turbulence structures in the logarithmic region, which are then re-formed after a particular streamwise extent. It is finally shown that for fences subject to a boundary layer of thickness comparable to their height, the effective thickness of the wall layer scales with the incoming boundary layer thickness. Analogously, it is hypothesized that the growth rate of the internal layer is also partly dependent on the incoming boundary layer thickness

Experimental characterization of the hypersonic flow around a cuboid

Understanding the hypersonic flow around faceted shapes is important in the context of the fragmentation and demise of satellites undergoing uncontrolled atmospheric entry. To better understand the physics of such flows, as well as the satellite demise process, we perform an experimental study of the Mach 5 flow around a cuboid geometry in the University of Manchester High SuperSonic Tunnel. Heat fluxes are measured using infrared thermography and a 3D inverse heat conduction solution, and flow features are imaged using schlieren photography. Measurements are taken at a range of Reynolds numbers from 40.0×103 to 549×103. The schlieren results suggest the presence of a separation bubble at the windward edge of the cube at high Reynolds numbers. High heat fluxes are observed near corners and edges, which are caused by boundary-layer thinning. Additionally, on the side (off-stagnation) faces of the cube, we observe wedge-shaped regions of high heat flux emanating from the windward corners of the cube. We attribute these to vortical structures being generated by the strong expansion around the cube’s corners. We also observe that the stagnation point of the cube is off-centre of the windward face, which we propose is due to sting flex under aerodynamic loading. Finally, we propose a simple method of calculating the stagnation point heat flux to a cube, as well as relations which can be used to predict hypersonic heat fluxes to cuboid geometries such as satellites during atmospheric re-entry