TRPIV measurement of turbulent coherent structures in a drag-reducing flow bypolymers

Abstract

Fully developed turbulentflow fields with and without polymer solution at the same Reynolds number were measured by time-resolved particle image velocimetry (TRPIV) in a water channel toinvestigate the mechanism of drag-reducingsolution from theview of coherent structures manipulation. The streamwise mean velocity and Reynolds stress profiles in thesolution werecompared with those in water. After adding the polymer solution, the Reynolds stress in the near-wall area decreases significantly. Theresult relates tightly to the decease of the coherent structures' bursting. The spatial topology of coherentstructures duringbursts has been extracted by the new mu-level criterion based on locally averaged velocitystructure function.The effect of polymers onturbulent coherentstructures mainly reflects in the intensity, not in the shape. In the solution, it is by suppressing thecoherent structuresthat the wall friction isreduced.