Asymmetries in an obstructed turbulent channel flow

Abstract

The asymmetric flow pattern caused by a single thin-plate obstruction in a plane channel has been explored by means of direct numerical simulations. The blockage ratio was 1:2 and the bulk Reynolds number about 5700. In order to mimic an infinitely long channel section upstream of the obstruction, realistic dynamic inflow conditions were provided by a promising technique proposed by Barri et al. [“Inflow conditions for inhomogeneous turbulent flows,” Int. J. Numer. Methods Fluids 60, 227 (2009)]. The fluid downstream of the symmetric obstruction was sucked toward one side where a modestly long region of rather strong recirculating flow was observed. The weaker recirculation bubble formed at the opposite side was 17 times longer than the obstruction height and almost four times the size of the shorter bubble. The overall flow pattern turned out to be rather different from that observed in a similar study of channel flow subjected to periodically repeating obstructions by Makino et al. [“Turbulent structures and statistics in turbulent channel flow with two-dimensional slits,” Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 29, 602 (2008)]. An anomalous variation of the pressure coefficient was observed with an excessively low pressure below the shorter of the bubbles. A locally high pressure occurred where the deflected jet flow impinges on the wall, whereas another pressure minimum could be associated with the flow acceleration caused by the severe blockage due to the major recirculation bubble. The turbulent fluctuations were suppressed due to the acceleration through the obstruction and high levels of streamwise velocity persisted far downstream. Exceptionally high turbulence levels were observed in the mixing-layers emanating from the two sides of the obstruction. The turbulence in these mixing-layers turned out to be qualitatively and quantitatively different on the two sides and exhibited distinctly different anisotropies.