Experimental investigation of acceleration and velocity fields in turbulent channel flow

Time-resolved particle-image velocimetry measurements are made in the streamwise—wall-normal plane of turbulent channel flow at Re_τ = 547, 1133, and 1734. These measurements are meant to complement efforts in the development of a new class of large-eddy simulation (LES) subgrid-scale models for the simulation of high-Reynolds-number wall turbulence. Optimal formulations of LES are based upon minimizing the mean-square error associated with estimating the short-term dynamics of the resolved scales of the turbulence. However, due to the empirical nature of optimal LES, extension of optimal formulations to higher Reynolds number requires experimental documentation of the statistical and structural behavior of both the velocity and the evolution of the flow at higher Reynolds numbers.; It is found that coherent arrangements of hairpin-like vortices in the outer layer leave their imprint upon the statistics of the flow. Estimates of the conditionally-averaged velocity field associated with a spanwise vortex core consist of a series of swirling motions located along a line inclined away from the wall. This pattern is consistent with the observations of outer-layer turbulence in which groups of hairpin/hairpin-like vortices occur aligned in the streamwise direction.; The velocity time derivatives are associated predominantly with small scales in both space and time. Examination of instantaneous and estimates of the conditionally averaged velocity time-derivative fields indicates that the smaller-scale vortices leave a convective imprint upon the time derivatives. Further, the streamwise spectra of the velocity time-derivative support the notion that convective effects dominate the smaller scales of the flow. Comparison between the bulk convective-derivative and time-derivative spectra illustrate this behavior. At low wavenumbers, the bulk convective-derivative and time-derivative spectra coincide with one another, implying that the larger scales are dominated by evolution. At moderate wavenumbers (coincident with the streamwise spacing of the vortices associated with the outer-layer vortex organization noted earlier), the energy associated with convection reaches a maximum. With increasing Reynolds number, the influence of convective effects diminishes at all wavenumbers in terms of its contribution to the energy of the velocity time derivative. This behavior is quite encouraging from the LES-modeling viewpoint, where capturing the true evolution of the flow is the main goal.