Experimental study of two side-by-side decaying grid turbulent fields at different mean velocities

Abstract

A Hot-wire anemometry experiment is conducted to investigate how two turbulent fields decaying with different mean velocities interact at their interface. A grid with different mesh sizes and solidities on either side of the grid centerline is used to generate two turbulent fields. It is found that the resulting turbulent shear layer created at the interface of the two fields evolves in a self-preserving manner. Further, the Taylor microscale Reynolds number, increases linearly while and become constants as the distance x downstream of the grids increases. Off the centerline one observes the classical decay of turbulence, e.g. varies like (n is negative) and decreases. It is observed that the transport equation for is dominated by the production and pressure-velocity correlation in the central region of the turbulent shear layer while production, dissipation, and turbulent diffusion of the transport equation for dominate in the central part of the shear layer. The pressure-velocity correlation term for is negligible on the centreline of the shear layer and important on the edges. The measurements of the scale-by-scale (SBS) energy terms on the shear layer centerline reveal that the energy transfer from large to small scales occurs in a non-trivial manner.