Anisotropic fluctuations in turbulent shear flows

Abstract

An experimental analysis of small-scale anisotropic fluctuations has been performed in two different flows in order to assess possible universal features of shear dominated turbulence, such as the decay rate of anisotropy at small scales and the recovery of isotropy. The two data sets—a homogeneous shear flow and a turbulent boundary layer—are characterized by turbulent Reynolds numbers in the range Reλ=230−330. The measurements in the logarithmic region of the turbulent boundary layer extend from y+=90 up to y+=350. The explicit use of the Taylor hypothesis is avoided by resorting to two-point measurements, with separation in the spanwise direction, z. Streamwise (u) and wall-normal (v) velocity components are simultaneously measured in both positions by means of cross-wire probes. This procedure allows the construction of the mixed transverse structure functions, here addressed up to order 6. According to the SO(3) formalism, the observables we selected are free of any isotropic contribution, thus allowing a direct measurement of the fully anisotropic component of the field. The results are consistent with the “exponent-only” scenario for universality, i.e., all experimental data can be fitted by fixing the same set of anisotropic scaling exponents by changing only the prefactors, for different shear intensities and boundary conditions.