110,413 research outputs found

    The stability of laminar symmetric separated wakes

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    Time-dependent computations of the two-dimensional incompressible uniform-velocity laminar flow past a normal flat plate (of unit half-width) in a channel are presented. Attention is restricted to cases in which the well-known anti-symmetric (von Kármán-type) vortex shedding is suppressed by the imposition of a symmetry plane on the downstream plate centreline. With a further symmetry plane at the channel's upper boundary, the only two governing parameters in the problem are the channel half-width, H, and the Reynolds number, Re (based on the body half-width and the upstream velocity, U). The former is restricted to the range 3?H?30 and the interest lies in determining the nature of the initial instability which occurs in the separated wake as Re is gradually increased. It is found that for sufficiently large H and at a critical Re, a long-time-scale global (supercritical) instability is initiated, which in its saturated (limit) state takes the form of ‘lumps’ of vorticity being periodically shed from the tail end of the separated bubble. Stability calculations of corresponding mean flow profiles (typical of those found in the separated wake) are undertaken by examining the impulse response of particular profiles via appropriate solution of the Orr–Sommerfeld equation. The results of this analysis extend those available from related published work and are consistent with the behaviour found from the numerical computations. Taken together, all the results suggest that this type of global instability may be generic to many kinds of separated wakes and, indeed, may provide the fundamental explanation for the very low-frequency oscillations often noticed in fully turbulent wake bubbles

    Channel flow over large cube roughness: a direct numerical simulation study

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    Computations of channel flow with rough walls comprising staggered arrays of cubes having various plan area densities are presented and discussed. The cube height h is12.5% of the channel half-depth and Reynolds numbers (u? h/?) are typically around 700 – well into the fully rough regime. A direct numerical simulation technique, usingan immersed boundary method for the obstacles, was employed with typically 35 million cells. It is shown that the surface drag is predominantly form drag, which is greatest at an area coverage around 15%. The height variation of the axial pressure force across the obstacles weakens significantly as the area coverage decreases, but is always largest near the top of the obstacles. Mean flow velocity and pressure data allow precise determination of the zero-plane displacement (defined as the height at which the axial surface drag force acts) and this leads to noticeably better fits to the log-law region than can be obtained by using the zero-plane displacementmerely as a fitting parameter. There are consequent implications for the value ofvon K´arm´ an’s constant. As the effective roughness of the surface increases, it is also shown that there are significant changes to the structure of the turbulencefield around the bottom boundary of the inertial sublayer. In distinct contrast to twodimensional roughness (longitudinal or transverse bars), increasing the area density of this three-dimensional roughness leads to a monotonic decrease in normalized vertical stress around the top of the roughness elements. Normalized turbulence stresses in the outer part of the flows are nonetheless very similar to those in smooth-wallflows

    Bluff bodies in deep turbulent boundary layers: Reynolds-number issues

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    It is generally assumed that flows around wall-mounted sharp-edged bluff bodies submerged in thick turbulent boundary layers are essentially independent of the Reynolds number Re, provided that this exceeds some (2–3) × 104. (Re is based on the body height and upstream velocity at that height.) This is a particularization of the general principle of Reynolds-number similarity and it has important implications, most notably that it allows model scale testing in wind tunnels of, for example, atmospheric flows around buildings. A significant part of the literature on wind engineering thus describes work which implicitly rests on the validity of this assumption. This paper presents new wind-tunnel data obtained in the ‘classical’ case of thick fully turbulent boundary-layer flow over a surface-mounted cube, covering an Re range of well over an order of magnitude (that is, a factor of 22). The results are also compared with new field data, providing a further order of magnitude increase in Re. It is demonstrated that if on the one hand the flow around the obstacle does not contain strong concentrated-vortex motions (like the delta-wing-type motions present for a cube oriented at 45? to the oncoming flow), Re effects only appear on fluctuating quantities such as the r.m.s. fluctuating surface pressures. If, on the other hand, the flow is characterized by the presence of such vortex motions, Re effects are significant even on mean-flow quantities such as the mean surface pressures or the mean velocities near the surfaces. It is thus concluded that although, in certain circumstances and for some quantities, the Reynolds-number-independency assumption is valid, there are other important quantities and circumstances for which it is not

    Connecting Dots: Multiple Perspectives on Socio-technical Transition and Social Practices

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    This Crossing Boundary hosts contributions accounting for experiences and theoretical perspectives which may look distant for how they address the socio-technical transition in the energy field but, we believe, when put in conversation, help common questions and tentative answers come to the fore. Giorgio Osti, Paul Upham, Paula Maria Bögel and Paula Castro have been engaged in reflecting on their respective disciplines in relation to socio-technical transitions. Recalling and valorising the STS basis of MLP and SPT in connection with other disciplinary approaches may contribute to enrich on one side STS debates and on the other empirical research on socio-technical transition in a historical juncture where such an endeavour looks definitely urgent

    Outer layer turbulence intensities in smooth- and rough-wall boundary layers

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    Clear differences in turbulence intensity profiles in smooth, transitional and fully rough zero-pressure-gradient boundary layers are demonstrated, using the diagnostic plot introduced by Alfredsson, Segalini & Örlü (Phys. Fluids, vol. 23, 2011, p. 041702) – u?/U versus U/Ue, where u? and U are the local (root mean square) fluctuating and mean velocities and Ue is the free stream velocity. A wide range of published data are considered and all zero-pressure-gradient boundary layers yield outer flow u?/U values that are roughly linearly related to U/Ue, just as for smooth walls, but with a significantly higher slope which is completely independent of the roughness morphology. The difference in slope is due largely to the influence of the roughness parameter (?U+ in the usual notation) and all the data can be fitted empirically by using a modified form of the scaling, dependent only on ?U/Ue. The turbulence intensity, at a location in the outer layer where U/Ue is fixed, rises monotonically with increasing ?U/Ue which, however, remains of O(1) for all possible zero-pressure-gradient rough-wall boundary layers even at the highest Reynolds numbers. A measurement of intensity at a point in the outer region of the boundary layer can provide an indication of whether the surface is aerodynamically fully rough, without having to determine the surface stress or effective roughness height. Discussion of the implication for smooth/rough flow universality of differences in outer-layer mean velocity wake strength is include

    The L-p-to-L-q boundedness of commutators with applications to the Jacobian operator

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    Supplying the missing necessary conditions, we complete the characterisation of the L-p -> L-q boundedness of commutators [b, T] of pointwise multiplication and Calderon-Zygmund operators, for arbitrary pairs of 1 q, our results are new even for special classical operators with smooth kernels. As an application, we show that every f is an element of L-p(R-d) can be represented as a convergent series of normalised Jacobians J(u) = det del uof u is an element of (over dot(W))(1,dp)(R-d)(d). This extends, from p = 1 to p > 1, a result of Coifman, Lions, Meyer and Semmes about J:. (over dot(W))(1,d)(R-d)(d) -> H-1(R-d), and supports a conjecture of Iwaniec about the solvability of the equation Ju = f is an element of L-p(R-d). (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.Peer reviewe

    Rough-wall boundary layers: mean flow universality

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    Mean flow profiles, skin friction, and integral parameters for boundary layers developing naturally over a wide variety of fully aerodynamically rough surfaces are presented and discussed. The momentum thickness Reynolds number Re? extends to values in excess of 47 000 and, unlike previous work, a very wide range of the ratio of toughness element height to boundary-layer depth is covered (0.03 < h/? < 0.5). Comparisons are made with some classical formulations based on the assumption of a universal two-parameter form for the mean velocity profile, and also with other recent measurements. It is shown that appropriately re-written versions of the former can be used to collapse all the data, irrespective of the nature of the roughness, unless the surface is very rough, meaning that the typical roughness element height exceeds some 50% of the boundary-layer momentum thickness corresponding to about h/? >0.2
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