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Turbulent Couette flow up to ${{Re}}_\tau =2000$

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2024

Sergio Hoyas*
Affiliation:
Instituto de Matemática Pura y Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera, 46024 València, Spain
Martin Oberlack
Affiliation:
Chair of Fluid Dynamics, TU Darmstadt, Otto-Berndt-Str. 2, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany Centre for Computational Engineering, TU Darmstadt, Dolivostraße 15, 64293 Darmstadt, Germany
*
Email address for correspondence: serhocal@mot.upv.es

Abstract

Two simulations of turbulent Couette flows were performed at friction Reynolds numbers of 1000 and 2000 in a large box of dimensions $L_x=16{\rm \pi} h$, $L_y=2h$ and $L_z=6{\rm \pi} h$, where h is the semi-height of the channel. The study focuses on the differences in the intensity and scaling of turbulence at these two Reynolds numbers. The 2000 case showed a lack of a clear log layer with a higher value of the Von Kármán constant $\kappa$ than Poiseuille channels. The intensities were well-scaled in the buffer layer and below, with a second maximum of the streamwise intensity at approximately 350 wall units. Contrary to Poiseuille channels, the dissipation scales close to the wall in wall units. This fact can be attributed to the constant value of the derivative of the streamwise intensity in wall units. The intensities of the 2000 case showed remarkable differences compared with those at Reynolds number 1000 at the channel centre, likely due to the organization of large scales of the streamwise fluctuactions, $u$. These large scales were thought to be considered ‘infinite’. However, for the 2000 case, while all the structures have a width of $\ell _z \approx 6/8{\rm \pi} h$, their length varies from $\ell _x \approx 6{\rm \pi} h$ to $\ell _x \approx 16{\rm \pi} h$, which clearly contradicts the trends obtained in the past. This is a new effect that has not been reported for turbulent Couette flow and points to the uncertainty and sensitivity that is observed for certain statistical quantities.

Information

Type
JFM Rapids
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Figure 0

Figure 1. Sketch of plane Couette flow driven by the velocity $U_w$ of the upper wall. The dimensions of the computational box are $L_x \times 2h \times L_z$.

Figure 1

Table 1. Most relevant publications of DNS of plane Couette flow. The second column shows the ranges of $Re_{\tau }$ simulated for the dimensions of the computational box shown in columns three and four. The last three columns show the mesh resolution.

Figure 2

Table 2. Summary of the simulations discussed. Here $L_x$ and $L_z$ are the numerical box's periodic streamwise and spanwise dimensions; $h$ is the channel half-height; $\Delta x^{+}$ and $\Delta z^{+}$ are the resolutions in terms of dealiased Fourier modes; $N_x,N_y,N_z$ are the numbers of collocation points. The time span of the simulation is given in terms of eddy turnovers $u_\tau T/h$, where T is the computational time; $\varepsilon$ is a measure of convergence, defined in Vinuesa et al. (2016). The maximum of $u'^+$ is given in the last column. Line styles given in the second column are used throughout the paper. Data references are C986 Pirozzoli et al. (2014), C550 Avsarkisov et al. (2014) and C500 Lee & Moser (2018).

Figure 3

Figure 2. Lines as in table 2. (a) Shear and Reynolds stress: ${\rm d}\bar {U}^+/{{\rm d}y}^+$ (dash-dot), $\overline {uv}^+$ (solid). Symbols as given in table 2. Notice how the two cases at $Re_\tau = 1000$ are basically the same. (b) Difference between left-hand side and right-hand side of (2.2).

Figure 4

Figure 3. Lines as in table 2. (a) Indicator function for the different cases. The agreement is excellent for the 1000 cases. (b) Evolution in $z$ of the values of $\varPsi$. The straight lines are the average of the cases.

Figure 5

Figure 4. Lines as in table 2. Thin lines: $v'^+$. Thick lines: $w'^+$. The $y$ scale is wall units $y^+$ (a) and outer units $y/h$ (b).

Figure 6

Figure 5. Lines as in table 1. (a) $u'^+$. Inset: derivative of $u'^+$ for $y^+$ close to the second maximum. (b) Budgets for Reynolds stresses in wall units for $u'$. Production $\blacksquare$, dissipation $\blacklozenge$, viscous diffusion $\ast$, pressure strain $\blacktriangledown$, pressure diffusion $\blacktriangle$, turbulent diffusion ${\bullet }$. Purple and cyan dashed lines, Poiseuille channel at $Re_\tau =2000$ (Hoyas et al.2022) and $Re_\tau =10\,000$ (Hoyas & Jiménez 2006), respectively.

Figure 7

Figure 6. The $x$-averaged field $\langle u\rangle _x$. The value of the vector field $(\langle v\rangle _x,\langle w\rangle _x)$ is represented with arrows. (a) C1000 case. (b) C2000 case.

Figure 8

Figure 7. (a,b) $R_x(s)$ for C1000 (a) and C2000 (b). In both figures, we have added $\langle \phi \rangle _{x}$, showing the size in $z$ of the pair of rolls. (c) $R_x(s)$ at $\ell_x=6{\rm \pi} h$. The different rolls are marked using a dashed vertical line.