Showing papers on "Pipe flow published in 2008"

A direct numerical simulation study on the mean velocity characteristics in turbulent pipe flow

Abstract: Fully developed incompressible turbulent pipe flow at bulk-velocity- and pipe-diameter-based Reynolds number ReD=44000 was simulated with second-order finite-difference methods on 630 million grid points. The corresponding Karman number R+, based on pipe radius R, is 1142, and the computational domain length is 15R. The computed mean flow statistics agree well with Princeton Superpipe data at ReD=41727 and at ReD=74000. Second-order turbulence statistics show good agreement with experimental data at ReD=38000. Near the wall the gradient of with respect to ln(1−r)+ varies with radius except for a narrow region, 70 0.4. For 5300 0.4. A rationale based on the curvature of mean velocity gradient profile is proposed to understand the perplexing existence of logarithmic mean velocity profile in very-low-Reynolds-number pipe flows. Beyond ReD=44000, axial turbulence intensity varies linearly with radius within the range of 0.15 < 1−r < 0.7. Flow visualizations and two-point correlations reveal large-scale structures with comparable near-wall azimuthal dimensions at ReD=44000 and 5300 when measured in wall units. When normalized in outer units, streamwise coherence and azimuthal dimension of the large-scale structures in the pipe core away from the wall are also comparable at these two Reynolds numbers.

Variations of von Kármán coefficient in canonical flows

Abstract: The overlap parameters for the logarithmic law are obtained for available turbulent pipe and channel flow data using composite profiles fitted to the mean velocity. The composite profile incorporates κ, B, and Π as the varying parameters and their resulting behavior with Reynolds number is examined for these flows and compared to results from boundary layers. The von Karman coefficient in channel flow is smaller than the well-established value for zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layers of 0.384, while in pipe flows it is consistently higher. In contrast, the estimates of the wake parameter Π are the smallest for channel flows and largest for boundary layers. Further, the Superpipe data are reanalyzed to reveal that κ=0.41 is a better value for the von Karman constant in pipe flow. The collective behavior of κ in boundary layers, pipes, and channels reveals that the von Karman coefficient is not universal and exhibits dependence not only on the pressure gradient but also on the flow geometry.

Interface-resolved direct numerical simulation of vertical particulate channel flow in the turbulent regime

Abstract: We have conducted a direct numerical simulation study of dilute turbulent particulate flow in a vertical plane channel by considering thousands of finite-size rigid particles with resolved phase interfaces. The particle diameter corresponds to approximately 11 wall units and their terminal Reynolds number is set to 136. The fluid flow with a bulk Reynolds number of 2700 is directed upward, which maintains the particles suspended on average. Two density ratios were simulated, differing by a factor of 4.5. The corresponding Stokes numbers of the two flow cases were O(10) in the near-wall region and O(1) in the outer flow. We have observed the formation of large-scale elongated streaklike structures with streamwise dimensions of the order of eight channel half-widths and cross-stream dimensions of the order of one half-width. At the same time, we have found no evidence of significant formation of particle clusters, which suggests that the large structures are due to an intrinsic instability of the flow, which is triggered by the presence of the particles. It was found that the mean fluid velocity profile tends toward a concave shape, and the turbulence intensity and the normal stress anisotropy are strongly increased. The effect of varying the Stokes number while maintaining the buoyancy, particle size, and volume fraction constant was relatively weak.

Convective instability and transient growth in flow over a backward-facing step

Abstract: Transient energy growths of two- and three-dimensional optimal linear perturbations to two-dimensional flow in a rectangular backward-facing-step geometry with expansion ratio two are presented. Reynolds numbers based on the step height and peak inflow speed are considered in the range 0–500, which is below the value for the onset of three-dimensional asymptotic instability. As is well known, the flow has a strong local convective instability, and the maximum linear transient energy growth values computed here are of order 80×103 at Re = 500. The critical Reynolds number below which there is no growth over any time interval is determined to be Re = 57.7 in the two-dimensional case. The centroidal location of the energy distribution for maximum transient growth is typically downstream of all the stagnation/reattachment points of the steady base flow. Sub-optimal transient modes are also computed and discussed. A direct study of weakly nonlinear effects demonstrates that nonlinearity is stablizing at Re = 500. The optimal three-dimensional disturbances have spanwise wavelength of order ten step heights. Though they have slightly larger growths than two-dimensional cases, they are broadly similar in character. When the inflow of the full nonlinear system is perturbed with white noise, narrowband random velocity perturbations are observed in the downstream channel at locations corresponding to maximum linear transient growth. The centre frequency of this response matches that computed from the streamwise wavelength and mean advection speed of the predicted optimal disturbance. Linkage between the response of the driven flow and the optimal disturbance is further demonstrated by a partition of response energy into velocity components.

Transition in pipe flow: the saddle structure on the boundary of turbulence

Abstract: The laminar-turbulent boundary Sigma is the set separating initial conditions which relaminarize uneventfully from those which become turbulent. Phase space trajectories on this hypersurface in cyl ...

Dynamics of prolate ellipsoidal particles in a turbulent channel flow

Abstract: The dynamical behavior of tiny elongated particles in a directly simulated turbulent flow field is investigated. The ellipsoidal particles are affected both by inertia and hydrodynamic forces and torques. The time evolution of the particle orientation and translational and rotational motions in a statistically steady channel flow is obtained for six different particle classes. The focus is on the influence of particle aspect ratio λ and the particle response time on the particle dynamics, i.e., distribution, orientation, translation, and rotation. Both ellipsoidal and spherical particles tend to accumulate in the viscous sublayer and preferentially concentrate in regions of low-speed fluid velocity. The translational motion is practically unaffected by the aspect ratio, whereas both mean and fluctuating spin components depend crucially on λ. The ellipsoids tend to align themselves with the mean flow direction and this tendency becomes more pronounced in the wall proximity when the lateral tilting of the elongated particles is suppressed.

Repeller or Attractor? Selecting the Dynamical Model for the Onset of Turbulence in Pipe Flow.

Abstract: The collapse of turbulence, observable in shear flows at low Reynolds numbers, raises the question if turbulence is generically of a transient nature or becomes sustained at some critical point. Recent data have led to conflicting views with the majority of studies supporting the model of turbulence turning into an attracting state. Here we present lifetime measurements of turbulence in pipe flow spanning 8 orders of magnitude in time, drastically extending all previous investigations. We show that no critical point exists in this regime and that in contrast to the prevailing view the turbulent state remains transient. To our knowledge this is the first observation of superexponential transients in turbulence, confirming a conjecture derived from low-dimensional systems.

Dynamical systems and the transition to turbulence in linearly stable shear flows

Abstract: Plane Couette flow and pressure-driven pipe flow are two examples of flows where turbulence sets in while the laminar profile is still linearly stable. Experiments and numerical studies have shown that the transition has features compatible with the formation of a strange saddle rather than an attractor. In particular, the transition depends sensitively on initial conditions and the turbulent state is not persistent but has an exponential distribution of lifetimes. Embedded within the turbulent dynamics are coherent structures, which transiently show up in the temporal evolution of the turbulent flow. Here we summarize the evidence for this transition scenario in these two flows, with an emphasis on lifetime studies in the case of plane Couette flow and on the coherent structures in pipe flow.

Laminar-to-turbulent transition of pipe flows through puffs and slugs

Abstract: (Received 16 August 2007 and in revised form 7 July 2008) Laminar-to-turbulent transition of pipe flows occurs, for sufficiently high Reynolds numbers, in the form of slugs. These are initiated by disturbances in the entrance region of a pipe flow, and grow in length in the axial direction as they move downstream. Sequences of slugs merge at some distance from the pipe inlet to finally form the state of fully developed turbulent pipe flow. This formation process is generally known, but the randomness in time of naturally occurring slug formation does not permit detailed study of slug flows. For this reason, a special test facility was developed and built for detailed investigation of deterministically generated slugs in pipe flows. It is also employed to generate the puff flows at lower Reynolds numbers. The results reveal a high degree of reproducibility with which the triggering device is able to produce puffs. With increasing Reynolds number, ‘puff splitting’ is observed and the split puffs develop into slugs. Thereafter, the laminar-to-turbulent transition occurs in the same way as found for slug flows. The ring-type obstacle height, h, required to trigger fully developed laminar flows to form first slugs or puffs is determined to show its dependence on the Reynolds number, Re = DU/ν (where D is the pipe diameter, U is the mean velocity in the axial direction and ν is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid). When correctly normalized, h + turns out to be independent of Reτ (where h + = hUτ /ν, Reτ = DUτ /ν and Uτ = √ τw/ρ; τw is the wall shear stress and ρ is the density of the fluid).

Statistical properties of wall pressure fluctuations over a forward-facing step

Abstract: This work describes an experimental study of the flow field and wall pressure fluctuations induced by quasi-two-dimensional incompressible turbulent boundary layers overflowing a forward-facing step (FFS). Pressure fluctuations are measured upstream and downstream of an instrumented FFS step model installed inside a large scale recirculation water tunnel, while two-dimensional (2D) velocity fields are measured close to the step via 2D particle image velocimetry (PIV). The overall flow physics is studied in terms of averaged velocity and vorticity fields for different Reynolds numbers based on the step’s height. The wall pressure statistics are analyzed in terms of several indicators, including the root mean squares and probability density functions of the pressure fluctuations, demonstrating that the most relevant flow structure is the unsteady recirculation bubble formed at the reattachment region downstream of the step. Pressure spectra and cross correlations are computed as well, and the convection vel...

Simulations of extensional flow in microrheometric devices

Abstract: We present a detailed numerical study of the flow of a Newtonian fluid through microrheometric devices featuring a sudden contraction–expansion. This flow configuration is typically used to generate extensional deformations and high strain rates. The excess pressure drop resulting from the converging and diverging flow is an important dynamic measure to quantify if the device is intended to be used as a microfluidic extensional rheometer. To explore this idea, we examine the effect of the contraction length, aspect ratio and Reynolds number on the flow kinematics and resulting pressure field. Analysis of the computed velocity and pressure fields show that, for typical experimental conditions used in microfluidic devices, the steady flow is highly three-dimensional with open spiraling vortical structures in the stagnant corner regions. The numerical simulations of the local kinematics and global pressure drop are in good agreement with experimental results. The device aspect ratio is shown to have a strong impact on the flow and consequently on the excess pressure drop, which is quantified in terms of the dimensionless Couette and Bagley correction factors. We suggest an approach for calculating the Bagley correction which may be especially appropriate for planar microchannels.

Inertial migration of spherical particles in circular Poiseuille flow at moderately high Reynolds numbers

Abstract: The inertial migration of spherical particles in a circular Poiseuille flow is numerically investigated for the tube Reynolds number up to 2200. The periodic boundary condition is imposed in the streamwise direction. The equilibrium positions, the migration velocity, and the angular velocity of a single particle in a tube cell are examined at different Reynolds numbers, particle-tube size ratios, and tube lengths. Inner equilibrium positions are observed as the Reynolds number exceeds a critical value, in qualitatively agreement with the previous experimental observations [J.-P. Matas, J. F. Morris, and E. Guazzelli, J. Fluid Mech. 515, 171 (2004)]. Our results indicate that the hydrodynamic interactions between the particles in different periodic cells have significant effects on the migration of the particles at the tube length being even as large as 6.7 particle diameters and they tend to stabilize the particles at the outer Segre–Silberberg equilibrium positions and to suppress the emergence of the in...

Linear stability analysis of pressure-driven flows in channels with porous walls

Abstract: We present the three-dimensional linear stability analysis of a pressure-driven, incompressible, fully developed, laminar flow in a channel delimited by rigid, homogeneous, isotropic, porous layers. We consider porous materials of small permeability in which the maximum fluid velocity is small compared to the mean velocity in the channel region and for which inertial effects may be neglected. We analyse the linear stability of symmetric laminar velocity profiles in channels with two identical porous walls as well as skewed laminar velocity profiles in channels with only one porous wall. We solve the fully coupled linear stability problem, arising from the adjacent channel and porous flows, using a spectral collocation technique. We validate our results by recovering the linear stability results of a flow in a channel with impermeable walls as the permeabilities of the porous layers tend to zero. We also verify that our results are consistent with the assumption of negligible inertial effects in the porous regions. We characterize the stability of pressure-driven flows by performing a parametric study in which we vary the permeability, porosity, and height of the porous layers as well as an interface coefficient, τ , associated with the momentum transfer process at the interfaces between the channel and porous regions. We find that very small amounts of wall permeability significantly affect the Orr– Sommerfeld spectrum and can dramatically decrease the stability of the channel flow. Within our assumptions, in channels with two porous walls, permeability destabilizes up to two Orr–Sommerfeld wall modes and introduces two new damped wall modes on the left branch of the spectrum. In channels with only one porous wall, permeability destabilizes up to one wall mode and introduces one new damped wall mode on the left branch of the spectrum. In both cases, permeability also introduces a new class of damped modes associated with the porous regions. The size of the unstable region delimited by the neutral curve grows substantially, and the critical Reynolds number can decrease to only 10 % of the corresponding value for a channel flow with impermeable walls. We conclude our study by considering two real materials: foametal and aloxite. We fit the porosity and interface coefficient τ to published data so that the porous materials we model behave like foametal and aloxite, and we compare our results with previously published numerical and experimental results.

Transonic Shocks in Compressible Flow Passing a Duct for Three-Dimensional Euler Systems

Abstract: In this paper we study the transonic shock in steady compressible flow passing a duct. The flow is a given supersonic one at the entrance of the duct and becomes subsonic across a shock front, which passes through a given point on the wall of the duct. The flow is governed by the three-dimensional steady full Euler system, which is purely hyperbolic ahead of the shock and is of elliptic–hyperbolic composed type behind the shock. The upstream flow is a uniform supersonic one with the addition of a three-dimensional perturbation, while the pressure of the downstream flow at the exit of the duct is assigned apart from a constant difference. The problem of determining the transonic shock and the flow behind the shock is reduced to a free-boundary value problem. In order to solve the free-boundary problem of the elliptic–hyperbolic system one crucial point is to decompose the whole system to a canonical form, in which the elliptic part and the hyperbolic part are separated at the level of the principal part. Due to the complexity of the characteristic varieties for the three-dimensional Euler system the calculus of symbols is employed to complete the decomposition. The new ingredient of our analysis also contains the process of determining the shock front governed by a pair of partial differential equations, which are coupled with the three-dimensional Euler system.