The current study investigates the structural modifications imposed in fully-developed turbulent channel flow by an isolated, wall-mounted circular cylinder. The cylinder height is chosen to specifically extend into the logarithmic layer of the flow in order to study its perturbation of the larger flow scales that embody a significant fraction of the turbulent kinetic energy. Hot-wire measurements were made in the wake of the wall-mounted circular cylinder at multiple wall-normal and streamwise positions. Mean streamwise statistics (mean velocity and Reynolds normal stress) and pre-multiplied spectra of perturbed and unperturbed flow were computed, and influence of the cylinder on these statistics were analyzed. The influence of such perturbations on the inner-outer interactions of the channel flow were also investigated.
Besides the mean velocity deficit in the wake of the cylinder, a new peak in streamwise Reynolds normal stress away from the wall was observed, coupled with the suppression of the near-wall peak native to the incoming unperturbed flow. Pre-multiplied spectra elaborated on these energy modifications, specifically the occurrence of an energy peak corresponding to a wavelength (λx) ~ 0.45 times the channel half-height (h), an attenuation of large-scale energy close to the wall, and a tertiary peak at two-third's the cylinder height corresponding to a length scale of λx ~ 10h. Further, amplitude modulation effects of the large-scale motions on small scales close to the wall, representative of inner-outer interactions, was found to be greatly enhanced in the near-wall region. All the perturbations were found to decay with streamwise distance downstream towards the unperturbed flow.
A clear persistence of the structures at the aforementioned tertiary peak, similar to the wavelengths of the very large scale motions (VLSMs) in canonical wall turbulence, tends to suggest an environment in turbulent flows preferring structures of such wavelengths. Possible mechanisms for the observed suppression of near-wall cycle and the enhanced inner-outer interactions are suggested. The influence of cylinder aspect ratio on the characteristics of perturbed flow are evaluated, and a distinction in wake structure is identified. The necessity of future studies to further understand these significant attributes of perturbation response and recovery of the turbulent wall bounded flows is highlighted
