Some Characteristics of the Vortical Motions in the Outer Region of Turbulent Boundary Layers (Data Bank Contribution)

Abstract

Time-resolved measurements of the spanwise vorticity component, ωz, are used to investigate the motions in the outer region of turbulent boundary layers. The measurements were taken in very thick zero pressure gradient boundary layers (Rθ = 1010, 2870, 4850) using a four wire probe. As a result of the large boundary layer thickness, at the outer region locations where the measurements were taken the wall-normal and spanwise dimensions of the probe ranged between 0.7 < Δy/η < 1.2 and 2.1 < Δz/η < 3.9, respectively, where η is the local Kolmogorov length. An analysis of vorticity based intermittency is presented near y/δ = 0.6 and 0.85 at each of the Reynolds numbers. The average intermittency is presented as a function of detector threshold level and position in the boundary layer. The spanwise vorticity signals were found to yield average intermittency values at least as large as previous intermittency studies using “surrogate” signals. The average intermittency results do not indicate a region of threshold independence. An analysis of ωz event durations conditioned on the signal amplitude was also performed. The results of this analysis indicate that for decreasing Rθ, regions of single-signed ωz increase in size relative to the boundary layer thickness, but decrease in size when normalized by inner variables.