Reynolds number effects on the Reynolds-stress budgets in turbulent channels

• Published in: Physics of fluids (1994) 2008-10, Vol.20 (10)
• Main Authors: Hoyas, Sergio, Jiménez, Javier
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Exact sciences and technology; Flows in ducts, channels, nozzles, and conduits; Fluid dynamics; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Physics; Turbulence simulation and modeling; Turbulent diffusion; Turbulent flows, convection, and heat transfer
• ISSN: 1070-6631; 1089-7666
• DOI: 10.1063/1.3005862

Budgets for the nonzero components of the Reynolds-stress tensor are presented for numerical channels with Reynolds numbers in the range Re τ = 180 – 2000 . The scaling of the different terms is discussed, both above and within the buffer and viscous layers. Above x 2 + ≈ 150 , most budget components scale reasonably well with u τ 3 / h , but the scaling with u τ 4 / ν is generally poor below that level. That is especially true for the dissipations and for the pressure-related terms. The former is traced to the effect of the wall-parallel large-scale motions, and the latter to the scaling of the pressure itself. It is also found that the pressure terms scale better near the wall when they are not separated into their diffusion and deviatoric components, but mostly only because the two terms tend to cancel each other in the viscous sublayer. The budgets, together with their statistical uncertainties, are available electronically from http://torroja.dmt.upm.es/channels.