A theory of turbulent flow round two-dimensional bluff bodies

Abstract

By generalizing the theory of ‘rapid distortion’ of turbulence developed by Batchelor & Proudman (1954) it is shown in this paper that the turbulent velocity around a bluff body placed in a turbulent flow can be calculated outside and upstream of the regions of separated flow, if the incident turbulent flow satisfies the following conditions: (i) if a/Lx [Lt ] 1 or = O(1), Re−1$u^{\prime}_{\infty}/\overline{u}_{\infty} $ [Lt ] 1 [Lt ] Re½; (ii) if a/Lx [Gt ] 1, Re−1 [Lt ] $u^{\prime}_{\infty}$ [Lt ] 1/(a/Lx) and Re [Gt ] (a/Lx)2, where $Re = \overline{u}_{\infty} a/ν$, is the mean uniform incident velocity, $u^{\prime}_{\infty}$ is the r.m.s. velocity of the homogeneous incident turbulence, a is a transverse dimension of the body (the radius in the case of a circular cylinder), Lx is the integral scale of the incident turbulence and v is the kinematic viscosity.Detailed calculations are given for the flow around a circular cylinder with particular emphasis on the turbulence very close to the surface. (The results can be generalized to other cylindrical bodies.) Mean-square values and spectra of velocity have been found only in the limiting situations where the turbulence scale is very much larger or smaller than the size of the body, i.e. Lx [Gt ] a or Lx [Lt ] a. But, whatever the value of a/Lx, if the frequency is sufficiently large the results for spectra tend to those of the limiting situation where Lx [Lt ] a. The reason why the turbulence velocities have not been calculated for intermediate values of a/Lx is that closed-form solutions cannot be found and that the computing time then required is quite excessive. However, some computed results are used in the paper to suggest the qualitative behaviour of the turbulence when Lx is of order a. An important result of the theory is that it illuminates and distinguishes between the governing physical processes of distortion of the turbulence by the mean flow, the direct ‘blocking’ of the turbulence by the body, and concentration of vortex lines at the body's surface.The results of the theory have many applications, for example in calculating turbulent dispersion and fluctuating pressures on the body, as shown elsewhere by Hunt & Mulhearn (1973) and Hunt (1973).In conclusion the theoretical results are briefly compared with experimental measurements of turbulent flows round non-circular cylinders. A detailed comparison with measurements round circular cylinders will be published later by Petty (1974).