THE STRUCTURE OF TURBULENT SHEAR FLOW AROUND A TWO-DIMENSIONAL POROUS FENCE HAVING A BOTTOM GAP

Abstract

The flow field behind porous fences of geometric porosity ε=38·5% with various bottom gaps (G) has been investigated using a hybrid PTV velocity field measurement technique. Four gap ratiosG /H=0·0, 0·1, 0·2 and 0·3 were tested in this study. One thousand instantaneous velocity vector fields in the x–y plane were consecutively measured for each gap ratio. The free-stream velocity was fixed at 10cm/s and the corresponding Reynolds number based on the fence height (H) was Re=2985. The results show that the gap ratio G/H=0·1 gives the best shelter effect among the four gap ratios tested in this study, having a small shelter parameter ψ in a large area behind the fence. As the gap ratio increases, the region of mean velocity reduction decreases and the lower shear layer developed from the bottom gap expands upward. From the spatial distributions of turbulence statistics including turbulence intensities, Reynolds shear stress and turbulent kinetic energy, the wake characteristics can be divided into two categories depending on the gap ratio. When the gap ratio is aboveG /H=0·2, the turbulence statistics have large values in the lower shear layer. For the gap ratio G/H≤0·1, however, the lower shear layer displays small turbulence-statistics values and approach those of the no-gap case (G/H=0) with increasing distance downstream. In the upper shear layer separated from the fence top, the turbulence statistics are nearly independent of the gap ratio.