Since the review of periodic flow phenomena by Berger & Wille (1972) in this journal, over twenty years ago, there has been a surge of activity regarding bluff body wakes. Many of the questions regarding wake vortex dynamics from the earlier review have now been answered in the literature, and perhaps an essential key to our new understandings (and indeed to new questions) has been the recent focus, over the past eight years, on the three-dimensional aspects of nominally two-dimensional wake flows. New techniques in experiment, using laser-induced fluorescence and PIV (Particle-Image-Velocimetry), are vigorously being applied to wakes, but interestingly, several of the new discoveries have come from careful use of classical methods. There is no question that strides forward in understanding of the wake problem are being made possible by ongoing three- dimensional direct numerical simulations, as well as by the surprisingly successful use of analytical modeling in these flows, and by secondary stability analyses. These new developments, and the discoveries of several new phenomena in wakes, are presented in this review.

Vortex Dynamics in the Cylinder Wake

Digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) is a non-intrusive analysis technique that is very popular for mapping flows quantitatively. To get accurate results, in particular in complex flow fields, a number of challenges have to be faced and solved: The quality of the flow measurements is affected by computational details such as image pre-conditioning, sub-pixel peak estimators, data validation procedures, interpolation algorithms and smoothing methods. The accuracy of several algorithms was determined and the best performing methods were implemented in a user-friendly open-source tool for performing DPIV flow analysis in Matlab.

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PIVlab – Towards User-friendly, Affordable and Accurate Digital Particle Image Velocimetry in MATLAB

The structure of energy-containing turbulence in the outer region of a zero-pressure-
 gradient boundary layer has been studied using particle image velocimetry (PIV) to measure the instantaneous velocity fields in a streamwise-wall-normal plane. Experiments performed at three Reynolds numbers in the range 930 0) that occur on a locus inclined at 30–60° to the wall.In the outer layer, hairpin vortices occur in streamwise-aligned packets that propagate with small velocity dispersion. Packets that begin in or slightly above the buffer layer are very similar to the packets created by the autogeneration mechanism (Zhou, Adrian & Balachandar 1996). Individual packets grow upwards in the streamwise direction at a mean angle of approximately 12°, and the hairpins in packets are typically spaced several hundred viscous lengthscales apart in the streamwise direction. Within the interior of the envelope the spatial coherence between the velocity fields induced by the individual vortices leads to strongly retarded streamwise momentum, explaining the zones of uniform momentum observed by Meinhart & Adrian (1995). The packets are an important type of organized structure in the wall layer in which relatively small structural units in the form of three-dimensional vortical structures are arranged coherently, i.e. with correlated spatial relationships, to form much longer structures. The formation of packets explains the occurrence of multiple VITA events in turbulent ‘bursts’, and the creation of Townsend's (1958) large-scale inactive motions. These packets share many features of the hairpin models proposed by Smith (1984) and co-workers for the near-wall layer, and by Bandyopadhyay (1980), but they are shown to occur in a hierarchy of scales across most of the boundary layer.In the logarithmic layer, the coherent vortex packets that originate close to the wall frequently occur within larger, faster moving zones of uniform momentum, which may extend up to the middle of the boundary layer. These larger zones are the induced interior flow of older packets of coherent hairpin vortices that originate upstream and over-run the younger, more recently generated packets. The occurence of small hairpin packets in the environment of larger hairpin packets is a prominent feature of the logarithmic layer. With increasing Reynolds number, the number of hairpins in a packet increases.

Vortex organization in the outer region of the turbulent boundary layer

Small-scale turbulence has been an area of especially active research in the recent past, and several useful research directions have been pursued. Here, we selectively review this work. The emphasis is on scaling phenomenology and kinematics of small-scale structure. After providing a brief introduction to the classical notions of universality due to Kolmogorov and others, we survey the existing work on intermittency, refined similarity hypotheses, anomalous scaling exponents, derivative statistics, intermittency models, and the structure and kinematics of small-scale structure—the latter aspect coming largely from the direct numerical simulation of homogeneous turbulence in a periodic box.

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The phenomenology of small-scale turbulence

Originally introduced in the fluid mechanics community, dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) has emerged as a powerful tool for analyzing the dynamics of nonlinear systems.
 However, existing DMD theory deals primarily with sequential time series for which the measurement dimension is much larger than the number of measurements taken.
 We present a theoretical framework in which we define DMD as the eigendecomposition of an approximating linear operator.
 This generalizes DMD to a larger class of datasets, including nonsequential time series.
 We demonstrate the utility of this approach by presenting novel sampling strategies that increase computational efficiency and mitigate the effects of noise, respectively.
 We also introduce the concept of linear consistency, which helps explain the potential pitfalls of applying DMD to rank-deficient datasets, illustrating with examples.
 Such computations are not considered in the existing literature but can be understood using our more general framework.
 In addition, we show that our theory strengthens the connections between DMD and Koopman operator theory.
 It also establishes connections between DMD and other techniques, including the eigensystem realization algorithm (ERA), a system identification method, and linear inverse modeling (LIM), a method from climate science.
 We show that under certain conditions, DMD is equivalent to LIM.

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On dynamic mode decomposition: Theory and applications

Characterisation of minimal-span plane Couette turbulence with pressure gradients

Mean Reynolds stress profiles and instantaneous Reynolds stress structures are investigated in a self-similar adverse pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer (APG-TBL) at the verge of separation using data from direct numerical simulations. The use of a self-similar APG-TBL provides a flow domain in which the flow gradually approaches a constant non-dimensional pressure gradient, resulting in a flow in which the relative contribution of each term in the governing equations is independent of streamwise position over a domain larger than two boundary layer thickness. This allows the flow structures to undergo a development that is less dependent on the upstream flow history when compared to more rapidly decelerated boundary layers. This APG-TBL maintains an almost constant shape factor of H = 2.3 to 2.35 over a momentum thickness based Reynolds number range of Re δ 2 = 8420 to 12400. In the APG-TBL the production of turbulent kinetic energy is still mostly due to the correlation of streamwise and wall-normal fluctuations, 〈uv〉, however the contribution form the other components of the Reynolds stress tensor are no longer negligible. Statistical properties associated with the scale and location of sweeps and ejections in this APG-TBL are compared with those of a zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer developing from the same inlet profile, resulting in momentum thickness based range of Re δ 2 = 3400 to 3770. In the APG-TBL the peak in both the mean Reynolds stress and the production of turbulent kinetic energy move from the near wall region out to a point consistent with the displacement thickness height. This is associated with a narrower distribution of the Reynolds stress and a 1.6 times higher relative number of wall-detached negative uv structures. These structures occupy 5 times less of the boundary layer volume and show a similar reduction in their streamwise extent with respect to the boundary layer thickness. A significantly lower percentage of wall-attached structures is observed in the present case when compared with a similar investigation of a rapidly decelerating APG-TBL, suggesting that these wall-attached features could be the remanent from the lower pressure gradient domain upstream.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1001/1/012001/pdf

Reynolds stress structures in a self-similar adverse pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer at the verge of separation

Influence of nozzle external geometry on wavepackets in under-expanded supersonic impinging jets

A study of a backward facing step flow at two Reynolds numbers

The structure and dynamics of adverse pressure gradient turbulent boundary layers (APG-TBL) have a significant role in the efficiency and performance of a range of transportation and energy generation platforms. This is particularly true in regions of strong adverse streamwise pressure gradient, such as near the trailing edges of wings and turbine blades, where separation of the boundary layer can significantly reduce performance with the potential for catastrophic consequences. The optimal design of such systems remains suboptimal due to a lack of fundamental understanding of how the pressure gradient influences the complex structure of the turbulent boundary layer, as illustrated by our inability to adequately scale the statistical flow quantities with varying pressure gradient. To enable an investigation of both the spatially and temporally coherent structure of APG-TBLs, a series of high-speed particle image velocimetry measurements were performed in a large water tunnel with a flexible and fully adjustable roof in order to allow for the adjustment of streamwise pressure gradient. Results show a significant departure from the more widely studied zero pressure gradient flow as a significant proportion of the turbulent activity moves out to a position roughly one displacement thickness above the wall, forming an outer turbulent fluctuation peak. The results show good agreement with DNS of a self-similar APG-TBL.

Julio Soria

Papers

Characterisation of minimal-span plane Couette turbulence with pressure gradients

Reynolds stress structures in a self-similar adverse pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer at the verge of separation

Influence of nozzle external geometry on wavepackets in under-expanded supersonic impinging jets

A study of a backward facing step flow at two Reynolds numbers

Experimental measurements of a self-similar adverse pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer