Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing

Lorentz-forcing spanwise travelling wave actuation in the turbulent boundary layer has been studied in a water channel at various experimental conditions (St = 139.2, 186 and 232; T+ = 17, 42 and 82). At the Reynolds number of Reτ = 388, a maximum skin friction drag reduction of 30% is achieved in s...

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Main Author: Xu, Peng
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2009
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10710/
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author Xu, Peng
author_facet Xu, Peng
author_sort Xu, Peng
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Lorentz-forcing spanwise travelling wave actuation in the turbulent boundary layer has been studied in a water channel at various experimental conditions (St = 139.2, 186 and 232; T+ = 17, 42 and 82). At the Reynolds number of Reτ = 388, a maximum skin friction drag reduction of 30% is achieved in some cases, while up to 22.8% of viscous drag increase is also observed. The results of the turbulent boundary layer profiles show that the turbulence intensities for both the drag-reducing and the drag-increasing cases are reduced. The higher moments of turbulence statistics such as the skewness and the kurtosis increase near the wall when T+ = 42, St = 232 in the drag-reducing case. For the drag-increasing case (T+ = 17, St = 232), the skewness and the kurtosis are decreased when very close to the wall (y+ < 6), while they are increased for y+ > 6, similar to the drag-reducing case. The reduction in the turbulent intensities as well as the changes in VITA velocity profiles suggest that the drag changes are due to the modified near-wall activities by the Lorentz forcing. Flow visualisation shows that the low-speed streaks are twisted into the spanwise directions in both the drag-reducing and the drag-increasing cases. For the drag-reducing case, the low-speed streaks are clustered together to form a wide low-speed region similar to what Du et al (2002) have found. This low-speed region seems to act as the ‘storage’ of low-speed fluid to help reduce the skin friction drag. To achieve the drag reduction, the spanwise displacement of low-speed streaks must be greater than 115 wall units in the present configuration, which compares well with the average spacing of low-speed streaks in the turbulent boundary layer. When the drag increase occurs, only pseudo-local spanwise oscillation is observed without a formation of a wide low-speed region. The pseudo-local spanwise oscillation appears to produce converging and diverging motions around the forcing-activation area. The induced streamwise vorticity layers are believed to enhance the effect of the sweep motion, which results in the increasing skin-friction drag.
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format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
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language English
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spelling nottingham-107102025-02-28T11:09:20Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10710/ Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing Xu, Peng Lorentz-forcing spanwise travelling wave actuation in the turbulent boundary layer has been studied in a water channel at various experimental conditions (St = 139.2, 186 and 232; T+ = 17, 42 and 82). At the Reynolds number of Reτ = 388, a maximum skin friction drag reduction of 30% is achieved in some cases, while up to 22.8% of viscous drag increase is also observed. The results of the turbulent boundary layer profiles show that the turbulence intensities for both the drag-reducing and the drag-increasing cases are reduced. The higher moments of turbulence statistics such as the skewness and the kurtosis increase near the wall when T+ = 42, St = 232 in the drag-reducing case. For the drag-increasing case (T+ = 17, St = 232), the skewness and the kurtosis are decreased when very close to the wall (y+ < 6), while they are increased for y+ > 6, similar to the drag-reducing case. The reduction in the turbulent intensities as well as the changes in VITA velocity profiles suggest that the drag changes are due to the modified near-wall activities by the Lorentz forcing. Flow visualisation shows that the low-speed streaks are twisted into the spanwise directions in both the drag-reducing and the drag-increasing cases. For the drag-reducing case, the low-speed streaks are clustered together to form a wide low-speed region similar to what Du et al (2002) have found. This low-speed region seems to act as the ‘storage’ of low-speed fluid to help reduce the skin friction drag. To achieve the drag reduction, the spanwise displacement of low-speed streaks must be greater than 115 wall units in the present configuration, which compares well with the average spacing of low-speed streaks in the turbulent boundary layer. When the drag increase occurs, only pseudo-local spanwise oscillation is observed without a formation of a wide low-speed region. The pseudo-local spanwise oscillation appears to produce converging and diverging motions around the forcing-activation area. The induced streamwise vorticity layers are believed to enhance the effect of the sweep motion, which results in the increasing skin-friction drag. 2009 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10710/1/Turbulent_flow_control_using_travelling_wave.pdf Xu, Peng (2009) Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
spellingShingle Xu, Peng
Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing
title Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing
title_full Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing
title_fullStr Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing
title_full_unstemmed Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing
title_short Turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via Lorentz forcing
title_sort turbulent flow control using spanwise travelling wave via lorentz forcing
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10710/