Effects of flow unsteadiness on the wall shear stress

Abstract

Measurements were performed on pulsating fully turbulent flows in a pipe test rig with a diameter of 100 mm. Sinusoidal oscillatory flow at different frequencies was superimposed on a mean flow of averaged Reynolds number Re=20000 based on the pipe diameter. The measurements have been performed at different forcing frequencies (0.001 < ω+ < 0.08) covering all the oscillatory regimes; quasi-steady, relaxation, quasi laminar and high frequency. The amplitude of the flow oscillation was small enough to allow a linear response in the measurements, i.e., all flow parameters showed an oscillatory behavior at the frequency of the flow. The amplitude of the oscillatory flow was about 10% of the mean velocity in all cases. The results include mean and phase averaged values of different parameters. The centerline velocity was measured by a 2D LDA system. Hot film and constant temperature anemometry system was used to determine the wall shear stress. Bulk velocity and pressure gradient along the pipe were also acquired. The results showed a good agreement with the previous analytical, experimental and numerical results available in the literature.