Surface roughness effects on the turbulence statistics in a low Reynolds number channel flow

Abstract

A high-resolution particle image velocimetry was used to characterize a low Reynolds number turbulent flow in a channel. Experiments were conducted over a sand grain-coated surface of large relative roughness, and the results were compared with measurements over a smooth surface. The roughness perturbation significantly modified the outer layer. Even though the streamwise Reynolds stress shows less sensitivity in the outer layer to the boundary condition, significant enhancements were observed in the wall-normal Reynolds stress and the Reynolds shear stress. These modifications were considered as footprints of the larger-scale eddies transporting intense wall-normal motions away from the rough wall. A quadrant decomposition shows that strong and more frequent ejections are responsible for the larger values of the mean Reynolds shear stress over the rough wall. The results also indicate that spanwise vortex cores with mean vorticity of the same sign as the mean shear are the dominant smaller-scale vortical structures over the smooth and rough walls. A linear stochastic estimation-based analysis shows that the average larger-scale structure associated with these vortices is a shear layer that strongly connects the outer layer flow to the near-wall flow. A proper orthogonal decomposition of the flow suggests that the large-scale eddy is more energetic for the rough wall, and contributes more significantly to the resolved turbulent kinetic energy and the Reynolds shear stress than the smooth wall.