Mechanical Engineering - Research Publications
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ItemVortex Rings in a Stratified Fluid(Australian fluid mechanics society, 2018)
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ItemAn investigation of channel flow with a smooth air-water interface(Springer Nature, 2015-06-01)Experiments and numerical simulation are used to investigate fully developed laminar and turbulent channel flow with an air-water interface as the lower boundary condition. Laser Doppler velocimetry measurements of streamwise and wall-normal velocity components are made over a range of Reynolds number based upon channel height and bulk velocity from 1100 to 4300, which encompasses the laminar, transitional and low Reynolds numbers turbulent regimes. The results show that the airflow statistics near the stationary wall are not significantly altered by the air-water moving interface, and reflect those found in channel flows. The mean statistics on the water interface side largely exhibit results similar to simulated Poiseuille-Couette flow (PCF) with a solid moving wall. For second order statistics, however, the simulation and experimental results show some discrepancies near the moving water surface, suggesting that a full two-phase simulation is required. A momentum and energy transport tubes analysis is investigated for laminar and turbulent PCFs. This analysis builds upon the classical notion of a stream tube and indicates that part of the energy from the pressure gradient is transported towards the stationary wall, and is dissipated as heat inside the energy tubes, while the remainder is transmitted to the moving wall. For the experiments, the airflow energy is transmitted towards the water to overcome the drag force and drive the water forward; therefore, the amount of energy transferred to the water is higher than the energy transferred to a solid moving wall.
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ItemMean dynamics of transitional channel flow(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2011-07)The redistribution of mean momentum and vorticity, along with the mechanisms underlying these redistribution processes, is explored for post-laminar flow in fully developed, pressure driven, channel flow. These flows, generically referred to as transitional, include an instability stage and a nonlinear development stage. The central focus is on the nonlinear development stage. The present analyses use existing direct numerical simulation data sets, as well as recently reported high-resolution molecular tagging velocimetry measurements. Primary considerations stem from the emergence of the effects of turbulent inertia as represented by the Reynolds stress gradient in the mean differential statement of dynamics. The results describe the flow evolution following the formation of a non-zero Reynolds stress peak that is known to first arise near the critical layer of the most unstable disturbance. The positive and negative peaks in the Reynolds stress gradient profile are observed to undergo a relative movement toward both the wall and centreline for subsequent increases in Reynolds number. The Reynolds stress profiles are shown to almost immediately exhibit the same sequence of curvatures that exists in the fully turbulent regime. In the transitional regime, the outer inflection point in this profile physically indicates a localized zone within which the mean dynamics are dominated by inertia. These observations connect to recent theoretical findings for the fully turbulent regime, e.g. as described by Fife, Klewicki & Wei (J. Discrete Continuous Dyn. Syst., vol. 24, 2009, p. 781) and Klewicki, Fife & Wei (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 638, 2009, p. 73). In accord with momentum equation analyses at higher Reynolds number, the present observations provide evidence that a logarithmic mean velocity profile is most rapidly approximated on a sub-domain located between the zero in the Reynolds stress gradient (maximum in the Reynolds stress) and the outer region location of the maximal Reynolds stress gradient (inflection point in the Reynolds stress profile). Overall, the present findings provide evidence that the dynamical processes during the post-laminar regime and those operative in the high Reynolds number regime are connected and describable within a single theoretical framework.