Uncovering Townsend's wall-attached eddies in low-Reynolds-number wall turbulence.

Autor: Cheng, Cheng, Li, Weipeng, Lozano-Durán, Adrián, Liu, Hong
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Fluid Mechanics; 4/25/2020, Vol. 889, p1-21, 21p
Abstrakt: A growing body of studies supports the existence of Townsend's wall-attached eddies in wall turbulence under the condition of sufficiently high Reynolds numbers. In the present work, we uncover the signature of Townsend's wall-attached eddies in low-Reynolds-number wall turbulence. To this end, we use a three-dimensional clustering methodology to identify the wall-attached structures of intense streamwise and spanwise velocity fluctuations in turbulent channel flows at four Reynolds numbers ($Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}=186$ , 358, 547 and 934). The statistical properties of the structures, such as their geometric self-similarity, population density and statistical moments, are investigated and compared with the predictions of the attached-eddy model. Particular attention is paid to the asymmetries between high- and low-speed wall-attached streaky structures, and we show that the former are a closer representation of the wall-attached eddies. This observation is ascribed to the differences between the sweep and ejection events associated with the streaks. We also examine the Reynolds-number effects on the statistical properties of the structures, and find that the signature of attached eddies can be observed within the Reynolds-number range under scrutiny. Our approach paves the way to cost-efficient model development and flow prediction using computationally more affordable simulations at low Reynolds numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Complementary Index