Abstract
The effect of a surfactant drag-reducing additive (530 ppm Habon G solution) on the structure of wall turbulence, both in a flume and in pipe flow, was investigated experimentally. Real-time infrared thermography was used for flow visualization and measurements of the spanwise spacing between the thermal streaks. The experiments were carried out over a broad range of friction velocities, i.e., up*=0.51–3.27 cm/s. With wall shear velocities 1.54⩽up*⩽3.27 cm/s drag reduction of 82%–85% was achieved in a tube flow, well below the predictions of the Virk maximum drag reduction asymptote proposed for high polymers. The results of spanwise streak spacing indicate that wall shear velocity may be an appropriate parameter for describing nondimensional streak spacing behavior in drag reducing flows. A hypothesis, based on the average spanwise streak spacing λ+, can be applied to describe the mean velocity profiles of Habon G solutions. The ratio (λp+−100)/100 was applied to describe mean velocity profiles with 530 ppm Habon G solution.
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