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Amplitude and wall-normal distance variation of small scales in turbulent boundary layers

Theresa Saxton-Fox1,*, Adrián Lozano-Durán2, and Beverley J. McKeon1

  • 1Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
  • 2Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-3291, USA

  • *Present address: Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA, tsaxtonf@illinois.edu
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 014606 – Published 20 January, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.014606

Abstract

The spatial organization of small scales around large-scale coherent structures in a flat plate turbulent boundary layer is studied using a conditional-averaging technique applied to experimental and computational data. The technique averages the small-scale velocity conditioned on the projection coefficient between the instantaneous streamwise velocity field and a model for large-scale velocity structures in the wake and logarithmic regions. Two distinct scenarios are identified for the organization of the small scales: amplitude variation, in which at a given wall-normal location the small-scale intensity varies in amplitude across the streamwise extent of the large-scale structure, and height variation, in which the small-scale velocity intensity remains nearly constant along a curve that changed its wall-normal location across the streamwise extent of the large-scale structure. Small scales that are energetic at the wall-normal location where the large-scale structure is centered primarily show evidence of height variation, while small scales that are energetic at wall-normal locations far from the center of the large-scale structure primarily show evidence of amplitude variation. Connections can be drawn between the statistical observations characterized by the amplitude modulation statistic and the structural picture associated with vortex clusters.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 014606– Published 20 January, 2022
  • Received 7 October 2021
  • Accepted 3 January 2022
Article part of CHORUS
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