Organized structure of turbulent boundary layer with rod-roughened wall

Abstract

Turbulent coherent structures near rod-roughened wall are investigated by analyzing the database of direct numerical simulation of turbulent boundary layer. The surface roughness rods with the height k / 0.05 δ = are arranged periodically in Re 9000 δ = . The roughness sublayer is defined as two-point correlations are not independent of streamwise locations around roughness. The roughness sublayer based on the two-point spatial correlation is different from that given by one-point statistics. Quadrant analysis and probability-weighted Reynolds shear stress indicate that turbulent structures are not affected by surface roughness above the roughness sublayer defined by the spatial correlations. The conditionally-averaged flow fields associated with Reynolds shear stress producing Q2/Q4 events show that though turbulent vortices are affected in the roughness sublayer, these are very similar at different streamwise locations above the roughness sublayer. The Reynolds stress producing turbulent vortices in the log layer ( / 0.15) y δ = have almost the same geometrical shape as those in the smooth wall-bounded turbulent flows. This suggests that the mechanism by which the Reynolds stress is produced in the log layer has not been significantly affected by the present surface roughness.