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The transition to turbulence in a plane Poiseuille flow of dilute polymer solutions is studied by direct numerical simulations of a finitely extensible nonlinear elastic fluid with the Peterlin closure. The range of Reynolds number ($$Re$$)$$2000 \le Re \le 5000$$is studied but with the same level of elasticity in viscoelastic flows. The evolution of a finite-amplitude perturbation and its effects on the transition dynamics are investigated. A viscoelastic flow begins transition at an earlier time than its Newtonian counterparts, but the transition time appears to be insensitive to polymer concentration in the dilute and semi-dilute regimes studied. Increasing polymer concentration, however, decreases the maximum attainable energy growth during the transition process. The critical or minimum perturbation amplitude required to trigger transition is computed. Interestingly, both Newtonian and viscoelastic flows follow almost the same power-law scaling of$$Re^\gamma$$with the critical exponent$$\gamma \approx -1.25$$, which is in close agreement with previous studies. However, a shift downward is observed for viscoelastic flow, suggesting that smaller perturbation amplitudes are required for the transition. A mechanism of the early transition is investigated by the evolution of wall-normal and spanwise velocity fluctuations and flow structure. The early growth of these fluctuations and the formation of quasi-streamwise vortices around low-speed streaks are promoted by polymers, hence causing an early transition. These vortical structures are found to support the critical exponent$$\gamma \approx -1.25$$. Once the transition process is completed, polymers play a role in dampening the wall-normal and spanwise velocity fluctuations and vortices to attain a drag-reduced state in viscoelastic turbulent flows. 

Direct numerical simulations were performed to study the effects of the domain size of a minimal flow unit (MFU) and its inherent periodic boundary conditions on flow physics of a turbulent channel flow in a range of 200≤Reτ≤1000. This was accomplished by comparing turbulent statistics with those computed in sub-domains (SD) of extended domain simulations. The dimensions of the MFU and SD were matched, and SD dynamics were set to minimize artificial periodicities. Streamwise and spanwise dimensions of healthy MFUs were found to increase linearly with Reynolds number. It was also found that both MFU and SD statistics and dynamics were healthy and in good agreement. This suggests that healthy MFU dynamics represent extended-domain dynamics well up to Reτ=1000, indicating a nearly negligible effect of periodic conditions on MFUs. However, there was a small deviation within the buffer layer for the MFU at Reτ=200, which manifested in an increased mean velocity and a tail in the Q2 quadrant of the u′-v′ plane. Thus, it should be noted that when considering an MFU domain size, stricter criteria may need to be put in place to ensure healthy turbulent dynamics. 

Abstract Coherent structures are critical for controlling turbulent boundary layers due to their roles in momentum and heat transfer in the flow. Turbulent coherent structures can be detected by measuring wall shear stresses that are footprints of coherent structures. In this study, wall shear stress fluctuations were measured simultaneously in a zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer using two house-made wall shear stress probes aligned in the spanwise direction. The wall shear stress probe consisted of two hot-wires on the wall aligned in a V-shaped configuration for measuring streamwise and spanwise shear stresses, and their performance was validated in comparison with a direct numerical simulation result. Relationships between measured wall shear stress fluctuations and streamwise velocity fluctuations were analyzed using conditional sampling techniques. The peak detection method and the variable-interval time-averaging (VITA) method showed that quasi-streamwise vortices were inclined toward the streamwise direction. When events were simultaneously detected by the two probes, stronger fluctuations in streamwise velocity were detected, which suggests that stronger coherent structures were detected. In contrast to the former two methods, the hibernating event detection method detects events with lower wall shear stress fluctuations. The ensemble-averaged mean velocity profile of hibernating events was shifted upward compared to the law of the wall, which suggests low drag status of the coherent structures related with hibernating events. These methods suggest significant correlations between wall shear stress fluctuations and coherent structures, which could motivate flow control strategies to fully exploit these correlations. 

Recent direct numerical simulations (DNS) and experiments in turbulent channel flow have found intermittent low- and high-drag events in Newtonian fluid flows, at Reτ=uτh/ν between 70 and 100, where uτ, h and ν are the friction velocity, channel half-height and kinematic viscosity, respectively. These intervals of low-drag and high-drag have been termed “hibernating” and “hyperactive”, respectively, and in this paper, a further investigation of these intermittent events is conducted using experimental and numerical techniques. For experiments, simultaneous measurements of wall shear stress and velocity are carried out in a channel flow facility using hot-film anemometry (HFA) and laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), respectively, for Reτ between 70 and 250. For numerical simulations, DNS of a channel flow is performed in an extended domain at Reτ = 70 and 85. These intermittent events are selected by carrying out conditional sampling of the wall shear stress data based on a combined threshold magnitude and time-duration criteria. The use of three different scalings (so-called outer, inner and mixed) for the time-duration criterion for the conditional events is explored. It is found that if the time-duration criterion is kept constant in inner units, the frequency of occurrence of these conditional events remain insensitive to Reynolds number. There exists an exponential distribution of frequency of occurrence of the conditional events with respect to their duration, implying a potentially memoryless process. An explanation for the presence of a spike (or dip) in the ensemble-averaged wall shear stress data before and after the low-drag (or high-drag) events is investigated. During the low-drag events, the conditionally-averaged streamwise velocities get closer to Virk’s maximum drag reduction (MDR) asymptote, near the wall, for all Reynolds numbers studied. Reynolds shear stress (RSS) characteristics during these conditional events are investigated for Reτ = 70 and 85. Except very close to the wall, the conditionally-averaged RSS is higher than the time-averaged value during the low-drag events. 

The effect of slip surfaces on the laminar–turbulent separatrix of plane Poiseuille flow is studied by direct numerical simulation. In laminar flows, the inclusion of the slip surfaces results in a drag reduction of over 10 %, which is in good agreement with previous studies and the theory of laminar slip flows. Turbulence lifetimes, the likelihood that turbulence is sustained, is investigated for transitional flows with various slip lengths. We show that slip surfaces decrease the likelihood of sustained turbulence compared to the no-slip case, and the likelihood is further decreased as slip length is increased. A more deterministic analysis of the effects of slip surfaces on a transition to turbulence is performed by using nonlinear travelling-wave solutions to the Navier–Stokes equations, also known as exact coherent solutions. Two solution families, dubbed P3 and P4, are used since their lower-branch solutions are embedded on the boundary of the basin of attraction of laminar and turbulent flows (Park & Graham, J. Fluid Mech. , vol. 782, 2015, pp. 430–454). Additionally, they exhibit distinct flow structures – the P3 and P4 are denoted as core mode and critical-layer mode, respectively. Distinct effects of slip surfaces on the solutions are observed by the skin-friction evolution, linear growth rate and phase-space projection of transitional trajectories. The slip surface appears to modify the transition dynamics very little for the core mode, but quite considerably for the critical-layer mode. Most importantly, the slip surface promotes different transition dynamics – an early and bypass-like transition for the core mode and a delayed and H- or K-type-like transition for the critical-layer mode. We explain these distinct transition dynamics based on spatio-temporal and quadrant analyses. It is found that slip surfaces promote the prevalence of strong wall-toward motions (sweep-like events) near vortex cores close to the channel centre, inducing an early transition, while long sustained ejection events are present in the region of the $$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}$$ -shaped vortex cores close to the critical layer, resulting in a delayed transition. This should motivate flow control strategies to fully exploit these distinct transition dynamics for transition to turbulence.