ALBERT

Description: The problem considered is that of the steady motion of a series of neutrally buoyant, flat-faced, rigid, cylindrical capsules along the axis of a pipeline under the influence of a hydraulic pressure gradient. The Navier-Stokes equations are non-dimensionalized and expressed in central-difference form. Numerical solutions are found by the method of relaxation for Reynolds numbers up to 20 000 and a close agreement is obtained with readings from a laboratory apparatus for Reynolds numbers up to 2200. The flow is examined in detail and the existence of toroidal vortices between successive capsules is demonstrated. Their shape is shown to be increasingly influenced by inertial forces as the Reynolds number increases, but the overall pressure gradient is not greatly dependent on the Reynolds number. © 1972, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

Description: We report new laboratory experiments of a flow accelerating from an initially turbulent state following the opening of a valve, together with large eddy simulations of the experiments and extended Stokes first problem solutions for the early stages of the flow. The results show that the transient flow closely resembles an accelerating laminar flow superimposed on the original steady turbulent flow. The primary consequence of the acceleration is the temporal growth of a boundary layer from the wall, gradually leading to a strong instability causing transition. This extends the findings of previous direct numerical simulations of transient flow following a near-step increase in flow rate. In this interpretation, the initial turbulence is not the primary characteristic of the resulting transient flow, but can be regarded as noise, the evolution of which is strongly influenced by the development of the boundary layer. We observe the spontaneous appearance of turbulent spots and discontinuities in the velocity signals in time and space, revealing rich detail of the transition process, including a striking contrast between streamwise and wall-normal fluctuating velocities. © 2017 Cambridge University Press.

Description: An experimental study of wall shear stress in an accelerating flow of water in a pipe ramping between two steady turbulent flows has been undertaken in a large-scale experimental facility. Ensemble averaged mean and r.m.s. of the turbulent fluctuations of wall shear stresses have been derived from hot-film measurements from many repeated runs. The initial Reynolds number and the acceleration rate were varied systematically to give values of a non-dimensional acceleration parameter k ranging from 0.16 to 14. The wall shear stress has been shown to follow a three-stage development. Stage 1 is associated with a period of minimal turbulence response; the measured turbulent wall shear stress remains largely unchanged except for a very slow increase which is readily associated with the stretching of existing turbulent eddies as a result of flow acceleration. In this condition of nearly 'frozen' turbulence, the unsteady wall shear stress is driven primarily by flow inertia, initially increasing rapidly and overshooting the pseudo-steady value, but then increasing more slowly and eventually falling below the pseudo-steady value. This variation is predicted by an analytical expression derived from a laminar flow formulation. The start of Stage 2 is marked by the generation of new turbulence causing both the mean and turbulent wall shear stress to increase rapidly, although there is a clear offset between the responses of these two quantities. The turbulent wall shear, reflecting local turbulent activities near the wall, responds first and the mean wall shear, reflecting conditions across the entire flow field, responds somewhat later. In Stage 3, the wall shear stress exhibits a quasi-steady variation. The duration of the initial period of nearly frozen turbulence response close to the wall increases with decreasing initial Reynolds number and with increasing acceleration. The latter is in contrast to the response of turbulence in the core of the flow, which previous measurements have shown to be independent of the rate of acceleration. © 2011 Cambridge University Press.

Description: A direct numerical simulation investigation of a transient flow in a channel with a smooth top wall and a roughened bottom wall made of close-packed pyramids is presented. An initially stationary turbulent flow is accelerated rapidly to a new flow rate and the transient flow behaviour after the acceleration is studied. The equivalent roughness heights of the initial and final flows are ks+ = 14.5 and 41.5, respectively. Immediately after the acceleration ends, the induced change behaves in a 'plug-flow' manner. Above the roughness crests, the additional velocity due to the perturbation flow is uniform; below the crest, it reduces approximately linearly to zero at the bottom of the roughness elements. The interaction of the perturbation flow with the rough wall is characterised by a series of events that resemble those observed in roughness-induced laminar-turbulent transitions. The process has two broad stages. In the first of these, large-scale vortices, comparable in extent to the roughness wavelength, develop around each roughness element and high-speed streaks form along the ridge lines of the elements. After a short time, each vortex splits into two, namely (i) a standing vortex in front of the element and (ii) a counter-rotating hairpin vortex behind it. The former is largely inactive, but the latter advects downstream with increasing strength, and later lifts away from the wall. These hairpin vortices wrap around strong low-speed streaks. The second stage of the overall process is the breakdown of the hairpin vortices into many smaller multi-scale vortices distributed randomly in space, leading eventually to a state of conventional turbulence. Shortly after the beginning of the first stage, the three components of the r.m.s of the velocity fluctuation all increase significantly in the near-wall region as a result of the vortical structures, and their spectra bear strong signatures of the surface topology. During the second stage, the overall turbulence energy in this region varies only slightly, but the spectrum evolves significantly, eventually approaching that of conventional turbulence. The direct effect of roughness on the flow is confined to a region up to approximately three element heights above the roughness crests. Turbulence in the core region does not begin to increase until after the transition near the wall is largely complete. The processes of transition over the smooth and rough walls of the channel are practically independent of each other. The flow over the smooth wall follows a laminar-turbulent transition and, as known from previous work, resembles a free-stream turbulence-induced boundary layer bypass transition. © 2015 Cambridge University Press.