School of Engineering, The University of Queensland
Abstract
Whilst turbulence still remains one of the great mysteries of classical physics, its reputation for a chaotic lack of structure is under intense scrutiny. Research now points to the existence of highly organized large-scale structures within turbulent flows. Much of this research have almost exclusively been carried out within a so called fully-developed region of flow. This region is downstream of a point beyond which the flow field’s behavior is invariant. However, it has not been conclusively proven that a fully developed region actually exists. A literature survey found that most facilities are cited as being ‘sufficiently long’, yet no formal definition or documentary evidence of the fully developed condition is widely accepted. The aim of the study is to produce a detailed analysis of the flow from the uniform inlet conditions through to the fully-developed turbulent state, along with an accurate definition of what constitutes fully developed flow. This investigation concerns the affect of both the growth of large-scale structures and their role in the evolution of the flow to the fully-developed condition. With the increasing acceptance of the turbulent large-scale structures model, previous research has not yet shown how large-scale structures affect this development length. These aims were achieved by the design, development and deployment of a carriage to transport hot-wires within the pipe allowing measurements at any stream wise point within the working sectio
