Resolvent-based design and experimental testing of porous materials for passive turbulence control

Abstract

An extended version of the resolvent formulation is used to evaluate the use of anisotropic porous materials as passive flow control devices for turbulent channel flow. The effect of these porous substrates is introduced into the governing equations via a generalized version of Darcy’s law. Model predictions show that materials with high streamwise permeability and low wall-normal permeability (ϕxy=kxx/kyy≫1) can suppress resolvent modes resembling the energetic near-wall cycle. Based on these predictions, two anisotropic porous substrates with ϕxy>1 and ϕxy<1 were designed and fabricated for experiments in a benchtop water channel experiment. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements were used to compute mean turbulence statistics and to educe coherent structure via snapshot Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD). Friction velocity estimates based on the Reynolds shear stress profiles do not show evidence of discernible friction reduction (or increase) over the streamwise-preferential substrate with ϕxy>1 relative to a smooth wall flow at identical bulk Reynolds number. A significant increase in friction is observed over the substrate with ϕxy<1. This increase in friction is linked to the emergence of spanwise rollers resembling Kelvin–Helmholtz vortices. Coherent structures extracted via POD analysis show qualitative agreement with model predictions.