Characteristics of reattached boundary layer in shock wave and turbulent boundary layer interaction

Abstract

The reattached boundary layer in the interaction of an oblique shock wave with a flat-plate turbulent boundary layer at Mach number 2.25 is studied by means of Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). The numerical results are carefully compared with available experimental and DNS data in terms of turbulence statistics, wall pressure and skin friction. The coherent vortex structures are significantly enhanced due to the shock interaction, and the reattached boundary layer is characterized by large-scale structures in the outer region. The space-time correlation of fluctuating wall shear stress and streamwise velocity fluctuation reveals that the structural inclination angle exhibits a gradual decrease during the recovery process. The scale interactions are analyzed by using a two-point amplitude modulation correlation. A possible mechanism is proposed to account for the strong amplitude modulation in the downstream region. Moreover, the mean skin-friction is decomposed to understand the physically informed contributions. Unlike the upstream Turbulent Boundary Layer (TBL), the contribution associated with the Turbulence Kinetic Energy (TKE) production is greatly amplified, while the spatial growth contribution induced by the pressure gradient largely inhibits skin-friction generation. Based on bidimensional empirical mode decomposition, the turbulence kinetic energy production contribution is further split into different terms with specific spanwise length scales.