Reynolds stress development in pressure-driven three-dimensional turbulent boundary layers

Abstract

The development of the Reynolds stress field was studied for flows in which an initially two-dimensional boundary layer was skewed sideways by a spanwise pressure gradient ahead of an upstream-facing wedge. Two different wedges were used, providing a variation in the boundary-layer skewing. Measurements of all components of the Reynolds stress tensor and all ten triple products were measured using a rotatable cross-wire anemometer. The results show the expected lag of the shear stress vector behind the strain rate. Comparison of the two present experiments with previous data suggests that the lag can be estimated if the radius of curvature of the free-stream streamline is known. The magnitude of the shear stress vector in the plane of the wall is seen to decrease rapidly as the boundary-layer skewing increases. The amount of decrease is apparently related to the skewing angle between the wall and the free stream. The triple products evolve rapidly and profiles in the three-dimensional boundary layer are considerably different than two-dimensional profiles, leaving little hope for gradient transport models for the Reynolds stresses. The simplified model presented by Rotta (1979) performs reasonably well providing that an appropriate value of the T-parameter is chosen.