Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: We investigate Lighthill’s proposed turbulent mechanism for near-wall concentration of spanwise vorticity by calculating mean flows conditioned on motion away from or toward the wall in an (friction Reynolds number) ${\textit{Re}}_\tau =1000$ database of plane-parallel channel flow. Our results corroborate Lighthill’s proposal throughout the entire logarithmic layer, but extended by counter-flows that help explain anti-correlation of vorticity transport by advection and by stretching/tilting. We present evidence also for Lighthill’s hypothesis that the vorticity transport in the log layer is a ‘cascade process’ through a scale hierarchy of eddies, with intense competition between transport outward from and inward to the wall. Townsend’s model of attached eddies of hairpin-vortex type accounts for half of the vorticity cascade, whereas we identify necklace type or ’shawl vortices’ that envelop turbulent sweeps as supplying the other half.
Source: Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Institution: Johns Hopkins University
Language: English
Subfield: Computational Mechanics
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W4415782296