The flow development in a groove-modified channel consisting of flat and grooved walls was investigated by direct numerical simulations based on the Navier–Stokes equations at a Reynolds number of $5\times 10^{3}$ based on the full channel height and the bulk velocity. Simulations were performed for highly disturbed initial flow conditions leading to the almost instantaneous appearance of turbulence in channels with flat walls. The surface morphology was designed in the form of profiled grooves aligned with the flow direction and embedded in the wall. Such grooves are presumed to allow development of only the statistically axisymmetric disturbances. In contrast to the rapid production of turbulence along a flat wall, it was found that such development was suppressed over a grooved wall for a remarkably long period of time. Owing to the difference in the flow structure, friction drag over the grooved wall was more than 60 % lower than that over the flat wall. Anisotropy-invariant mapping supports the conclusion, emerging from analytic considerations, that persistence of the laminar regime is due to statistical axisymmetry in the velocity fluctuations. Complementary investigations of turbulent drag reduction in grooved channels demonstrated that promotion of such a state across the entire wetted surface is required to stabilize flow and prevent transition and breakdown to turbulence. To support the results of numerical investigations, measurements in groove-modified channel flow were performed. Comparisons of the pressure differentials measured along flat and groove-modified channels reveal a skin-friction reduction as large as $\text{DR}\approx 50\,\%$ owing to the extended persistence of the laminar flow compared with flow development in a flat channel. These experiments demonstrate that early stabilization of the laminar boundary layer development with a grooved surface promotes drag reduction in a fully turbulent flow with a preserving magnitude as the Reynolds number increases.

Self-excitation of the motion of a structure has become a prominent aspect of engineering projects over recent years as designers are using materials at their limits, causing structures to become progressively lighter, more flexible and, therefore, prone to vibrate. Stimulated by the increasing interest in fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problems, this study investigated the instability and consequent FSI-induced self-excited oscillation of flexible structures in uniform flows at Reynolds numbers between $10$ and $1. 69\times 1{0}^{5} $. The investigations were performed in both water and a highly viscous syrup ($\nu = 1. 64\times 1{0}^{- 4} ~{\mathrm{m} }^{2} ~{\mathrm{s} }^{- 1} $) and considered three structures of different geometries. The results were conclusive in showing that the motion of the structure was characterized by a sequence of oscillation modes as a function of the characteristics of the structure and flow properties. In addition, it was possible to identify the self-excitation mechanisms as being of the instability-induced excitation (IIE) or movement-induced excitation (MIE) types. IIE was observed to be the most dominant mechanism of excitation at lower velocities and it was defined by a direct relation between the flow fluctuation and natural frequencies of the structure. For that reason, IIE was strongly determined by the geometry of the front body of the structure. At higher velocities, the amplitudes of the flow disturbances generated by the structure movement increased and excitations of the MIE type became predominant for all structures. The MIE mechanism was found to be weakly influenced by the shape of the structure but very sensitive to its dynamic characteristics and to the properties of the fluid, especially the Reynolds number.

Homogeneity of turbulence generated by static grids is investigated with the help of hot-wire measurements in a wind-tunnel and direct numerical simulations based on the Lattice Bolztmann method. It is shown experimentally that Reynolds stresses and their anisotropy do not become homogeneous downstream of the grid, independent of the mesh Reynolds number for a grid porosity of 64%, which is higher than the lowest porosities suggested in the literature to realize homogeneous turbulence downstream of the grid. In order to validate the experimental observations and elucidate possible reasons for the inhomogeneity, direct numerical simulations have been performed over a wide range of grid porosity at a constant mesh Reynolds number. It is found from the simulations that the turbulence wake behind the symmetric grids is only homogeneous in its mean velocity but is inhomogeneous when turbulence quantities are considered, whereas the mean velocity field becomes inhomogeneous in the wake of a slightly non-uniform grid. The simulations are further analysed by evaluating the terms in the transport equation of the kinetic energy of turbulence to provide an explanation for the persistence of the inhomogeneity of Reynolds stresses far downstream of the grid. It is shown that the early homogenization of the mean velocity field hinders the homogenization of the turbulence field.

Time-averaged LDA measurements and time-resolved numerical flow predictions were performed to investigate the laminar flow induced by the harmonic in-line oscillation of a circular cylinder in water at rest. The key parameters, Reynolds number Re and Keulegan–Carpenter number KC, were varied to study three parameter combinations in detail. Good agreement was observed for Re=100 and KC=5 between measurements and predictions comparing phase-averaged velocity vectors. For Re=200 and KC=10 weakly stable and non-periodic flow patterns occurred, which made repeatable time-averaged measurements impossible. Nevertheless, the experimentally visualized vortex dynamics was reproduced by the two-dimensional computations. For the third combination, Re=210 and KC=6, which refers to a totally different flow regime, the computations again resulted in the correct fluid behaviour. Applying the widely used model of Morison et al. (1950) to the computed in-line force history, the drag and the added-mass coefficients were calculated and compared for different grid levels and time steps. Using these to reproduce the force functions revealed deviations from those originally computed as already noted in previous studies. They were found to be much higher than the deviations for the coarsest computational grid or the largest time step. The comparison of several in-line force coefficients with results obtained experimentally by Kühtz (1996) for β=35 confirmed that force predictions could also be reliably obtained by the computations.