Direct numerical simulations (DNS) are performed to investigate the spatial evolution of flat-plate zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers over long streamwise domains ( $${>}300\delta _i$$ , with $$\delta _i$$ the inflow boundary-layer thickness) at three different Mach numbers, $2.5$ , $4.9$ and $10.9$ , with the surface temperatures ranging from quasiadiabatic to highly cooled conditions. The settlement of turbulence statistics into a fully developed equilibrium state of the turbulent boundary layer has been carefully monitored, either based on the satisfaction of the von Kármán integral equation or by comparing runs with different inflow turbulence generation techniques. The generated DNS database is used to characterize the streamwise evolution of multiple important variables in the high-Mach-number, cold-wall regime, including the skin friction, the Reynolds analogy factor, the shape factor, the Reynolds stresses, and the fluctuating wall quantities. The data confirm the validity of many classic and newer compressibility transformations at moderately high Reynolds numbers (up to friction Reynolds number $$Re_\tau \approx 1200$$ ) and show that, with proper scaling, the sizes of the near-wall streaks and superstructures are insensitive to the Mach number and wall cooling conditions. The strong wall cooling in the hypersonic cold-wall case is found to cause a significant increase in the size of the near-wall turbulence eddies (relative to the boundary-layer thickness), which leads to a reduced-scale separation between the large and small turbulence scales, and in turn to a lack of an outer peak in the spanwise spectra of the streamwise velocity in the logarithmic region.
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Near-wall patch representation of wall-bounded turbulence
Recent experimental and computational studies indicate that near-wall turbulent flows can be characterized by universal small-scale autonomous dynamics that is modulated by large-scale structures. We formulate numerical simulations of near-wall turbulence in a small domain localized to the boundary, whose size scales in viscous units. To mimic the environment in which the near-wall turbulence evolves, the formulation accounts for the flux of mean momentum through the upper boundary of the domain. Comparisons of the model's two-dimensional energy spectra and low-order single-point statistics with the corresponding quantities computed from direct numerical simulations indicate that it successfully captures the dynamics of the small-scale near-wall turbulence.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1913209
- PAR ID:
- 10223587
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics
- Volume:
- 903
- ISSN:
- 0022-1120
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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