Active control of turbulence for drag reduction based on the detection of near-wall streamwise vortices by wall information

The spatial relations between the measurable wall quantities （streamwise shear stress τwx, spanwise shear stress τwz, and pressure fluctuations Pw） and the near-wall streamwise vortices （NWSV） are investigated via direct numerical simulation （DNS） databases of fully developed turbulent channel flow at a low Reynolds number. In the stan- dard turbulent channel flow, the results show that all the wall measurable variables are closely associated with the NWSV. But after applying a stochastic interference, the relation based on τwx breaks down while the correlations based on Pw and τwz are still robust. Hence, two wall flow quantities based on Pw and τwz are proposed to detect the NWSV. As an appli- cation, two new control schemes are developed to suppress the near-wall vortical structures using the actuation of wall blowing/suction and obtain 16 % and 11% drag reduction, respectively.

A study on coherent structures and drag-reduction in the wall turbulence with polymer additives by TRPIV

An experimental measurement was performed us- ing time-resolved particle image velocimetry （TRPIV） to in- vestigate the spatial topological character of coherent struc- tures in wall-bounded turbulence of polymer additive solu- tion. The fully developed near-wall turbulent flow fields with and without polymer additives at the same Reynolds number were measured by TRPIV in a water channel. The compar- isons of turbulent statistics confirm that due to viscoelastic structure of long-chain polymers, the wall-normal velocity fluctuation and Reynolds shear stress in the near-wall region are suppressed significantly. Furthermore, it is noted that such a behavior of polymers is closely related to the decease of the motion of the second and forth quadrants, i.e., the ejection and sweep events, in the near-wall region. The spa- tial topological mode of coherent structures during bursts has been extracted by the new mu-level criteria based on locally averaged velocity structure function. Although the general shapes of coherent structures are unchanged by polymer additives, the fluctuating velocity, velocity gradient, velocity strain rate and vorticity of coherent structures during burst events are suppressed in the polymer additive solution com- pared with that in water. The results show that due to the polymer additives the occurrence and intensity of coherent structures are suppressed, leading to drag reduction.

Turbulent drag reduction by spanwise slot blowing pulsed plasma actuation

This work studies the turbulent drag reduction(TDR)effect of a flat plate model using a spanwise slot blowing pulsed plasma actuator(SBP-PA).Wind tunnel experiments are carried out under a Reynolds number of 1.445×10^(4).Using a hot-wire anemometer and an electrical data acquisition system,the influences of millisecond pulsed plasma actuation with different burst frequencies and duty cycles on the microscale coherent structures near the wall of the turbulent boundary layer(TBL)are studied.The experimental results show that the SBP-PA can effectively reduce the frictional drag of the TBL.When the duty cycle exceeds 30%,the TDR rate is greater than 11%,and the optimal drag reduction rate of 13.69%is obtained at a duty cycle of 50%.Furthermore,optimizing the electrical parameters reveals that increasing the burst frequency significantly reduces the velocity distribution in the logarithmic region of the TBL.When the normalized burst frequency reaches f+=2πf_(p)d/U_(∞)=7.196,the optimal TDR effectiveness is 16.97%,indicating a resonance phenomenon between the pulsed plasma actuation and the microscale coherent structures near the wall.Therefore,reasonably selecting the electrical parameters of the plasma actuator is expected to significantly improve the TDR effect.

Modeling of drag reduction in turbulent channel flow with hydrophobic walls by FVM method and weakly-compressible flow equations

In this paper the effects of hydrophobic wall on skin-friction drag in the channel flow are investigated through large eddy simulation on the basis of weaklycompressible flow equations with the MacCormack’s scheme on collocated mesh in the FVM framework. The slip length model is adopted to describe the behavior of the slip velocities in the streamwise and spanwise directions at the interface between the hydrophobic wall and turbulent channel flow. Simulation results are presented by analyzing flow behaviors over hydrophobic wall with the Smagorinky subgrid-scale model and a dynamic model on computational meshes of different resolutions. Comparison and analysis are made on the distributions of timeaveraged velocity, velocity fluctuations, Reynolds stress as well as the skin-friction drag. Excellent agreement between the present study and previous results demonstrates the accuracy of the simple classical second-order scheme in representing turbulent vertox near hydrophobic wall. In addition, the relation of drag reduction efficiency versus time-averaged slip velocity is established. It is also foundthat the decrease of velocity gradient in the close wall region is responsible for the drag reduction. Considering its advantages of high calculation precision and efficiency, the present method has good prospect in its application to practical projects.

An experimental study of drag reduction by nanofluids in slug two-phase flow of air and water through horizontal pipes

This study investigates the effect of injecting nanofluids containing nano-SiO_2 as drag reducing agents(DRA) at different concentrations on the pressure drop of air-water flow through horizontal pipe.The test fluid used in this study was air-water with nano-SiO_2 particles at 0.1%-1%mass concentration.The test sections of the experimental set-up were five pipes of the same length of 9 m with ID from 0.0127m-0.03175m(0.5 to 1.25 in).Airwater flow was run in slug flow regime under different volumetric flow rates.The results of drag reduction(η%)indicated that the addition of DRA could be efficient up to some dosage.Drag reduction performed much better for smaller pipe diameters than it did for larger ones.For various nanosilica concentrations,the maximum drag reduction was about 66.8%for 0.75%mass concentration of nanosilica.

Tomographic PIV investigation on coherent vortex structures over shark-skin-inspired drag-reducing riblets

Nature has shown us that the microstructure of the skin of fast-swimming sharks in the ocean can reduce the skin friction drag due to the well-known shark-skin effect.In the present study,the effect of shark-skin-inspired riblets on coherent vortex structures in a turbulent boundary layer（TBL） is investigated.This is done by means of tomographic particle image velocimetry（TPIV） measurements in channel fl ws over an acrylic plate of drag-reducing riblets at a friction Reynolds number of 190.The turbulent fl ws over drag-reducing riblets are verifie by a planar time-resolved particle image velocimetry（TRPIV） system initially,and then the TPIV measurements are performed.Two-dimensional（2D） experimental results with a dragreduction rate of around 4.81% are clearly visible over triangle riblets with a peak-to-peak spacing s＋of 14,indicating from the drag-reducing performance that the buffer layer within the TBL has thickened;the logarithmic law region has shifted upward and the Reynolds shear stress decreased.A comparison of the spatial topological distributions of the spanwise vorticity of coherent vortex structures extracted at different wall-normal heights through the improved quadrant splitting method shows that riblets weaken the amplitudesof the spanwise vorticity when ejection（Q2） and sweep（Q4） events occur at the near wall,having the greatest effect on Q4 events in particular.The so-called quadrupole statistical model for coherent structures in the whole TBL is verified Meanwhile,their spatial conditional-averaged topological shapes and the spatial scales of quadrupole coherent vortex structures as a whole in the overlying turbulent fl w over riblets are changed,suggesting that the riblets dampen the momentum and energy exchange between the regions of near-wall and outer portion of the TBL by depressing the bursting events（Q2 and Q4）,thereby reducing the skin friction drag.

A new mixed subgrid-scale model for large eddy simulation of turbulent drag-reducing flows of viscoelastic fluids

A mixed subgrid-scale（SGS） model based on coherent structures and temporal approximate deconvolution（MCT） is proposed for turbulent drag-reducing flows of viscoelastic fluids. The main idea of the MCT SGS model is to perform spatial filtering for the momentum equation and temporal filtering for the conformation tensor transport equation of turbulent flow of viscoelastic fluid, respectively. The MCT model is suitable for large eddy simulation（LES） of turbulent dragreducing flows of viscoelastic fluids in engineering applications since the model parameters can be easily obtained. The LES of forced homogeneous isotropic turbulence（FHIT） with polymer additives and turbulent channel flow with surfactant additives based on MCT SGS model shows excellent agreements with direct numerical simulation（DNS） results. Compared with the LES results using the temporal approximate deconvolution model（TADM） for FHIT with polymer additives, this mixed SGS model MCT behaves better, regarding the enhancement of calculating parameters such as the Reynolds number.For scientific and engineering research, turbulent flows at high Reynolds numbers are expected, so the MCT model can be a more suitable model for the LES of turbulent drag-reducing flows of viscoelastic fluid with polymer or surfactant additives.

On the drag reduction mechanism of hypersonic turbulent boundary layers subject to heated wall blowing

Turbulence drag reduction is of great significance for the range increase of hypersonic flight vehicles.The proposed velocity-temperature coupling control method(Liu et al,Phys Rev Fluids 6:044603,2021)is further extended to the hypersonic turbulent boundary layer.Direct numerical simulation results of four comparative cases show that the heated wall blowing achieves a drag reduction rate of 10.58%,which is about the sum of wall blowing(5.27%)and wall heating(6.35%).By evaluating the control efficiency,however,it is found that heated wall blowing is not as good as wall blowing and cannot obtain net energy saving rate.The modified FIK decompositions of skin friction coefficient indicate that the cliffy decrease of the mean convection term is the primary contribution for the drag reduction.Effects of the proposed control measure on turbu-lence statistics and coherent structures are also analyzed.Streamwise vortex is found to be away from the wall,thus leading to a lower friction drag.

DRAG REDUCTION EFFECT OF COUPLING FLEXIBLE TUBES WITH TURBULENT FLOW

To analyze the mechanism of drag reducing effect by coupling flexible tubes with turbulent flow, based on experimental examination of more obvious turbulent drag reduction effect in flexible tubes than in rigid tubes, experimental investigation was performed on the effect of turbulent drag reduction, fluctuating vibration characteristics of flexible tube and the correlations by using a double-tube system and laser displacement sensor. The results are as follows： with the decrease of the thickness of the flexible tubes, the root mean square of fluctuating amplitude of the outer wall of the tubes increases, and the non-dimensional burst period increases, resulting in the increase of the reduction rate of drag coefficient by coupling flexible tubes with turbulent flow. At applied pressure-balanced air on the outer wall and the Reynolds number of about 1.75×10^4, the non-dimensional burst periods of the flexible tubes with the thickness of 2 mm, 3 mm, 4 mm are 141, 126, 105, respectively.

Drag reduction of wall bounded incompressible turbulent flow based on active dimples/pimples

The control of turbulence by dimples/pimples has drawn more and more attention. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of the active dimples/pimples for the drag reduction in the incompressible turbulent flow. Firstly, the drag reduction by the opposition control based on active dimples/pimples at the lower wall is studied via the direct numerical simulation of the turbulent channel flow. It is found that large active dimples/pimples can not suppress the streamwise vortices significantly and thus almost no drag reduction is achieved. Small active dimples and pimples with the diameter of one fourth of the streak width can both reduce the friction drag, but pimples will induce a larger pressure drag than dimples. Then the suboptimal control scheme is examined based on small active dimples using the spanwise wall shear information only, It is shown that the friction drag decreases by about 4.5% but the total drag is only reduced by about 2.7% abated by the pressure drag. Compared with the actuation of the all-point blowing/suction or the all-point wall movement, the effectiveness of the turbulent drag reduction based on active shallow dimples is much smaller.

Direct numerical simulation of viscoelastic-fluid-based nanofluid turbulent channel flow with heat transfer

Our previous experimental studies have confirmed that viscoelastic-fluid-based nanofluid(VFBN) prepared by suspending nanoparticles in a viscoelastic base fluid(VBF, behaves drag reduction at turbulent flow state) can reduce turbulent flow resistance as compared with water and enhance heat transfer as compared with VBF. Direct numerical simulation(DNS) is performed in this study to explore the mechanisms of heat transfer enhancement(HTE) and flow drag reduction(DR) for the VFBN turbulent flow. The Giesekus model is used as the constitutive equation for VFBN. Our previously proposed thermal dispersion model is adopted to take into account the thermal dispersion effects of nanoparticles in the VFBN turbulent flow. The DNS results show similar behaviors for flow resistance and heat transfer to those obtained in our previous experiments. Detailed analyses are conducted for the turbulent velocity, temperature, and conformation fields obtained by DNSs for different fluid cases, and for the friction factor with viscous, turbulent, and elastic contributions and heat transfer rate with conductive, turbulent and thermal dispersion contributions of nanoparticles, respectively. The mechanisms of HTE and DR of VFBN turbulent flows are then discussed. Based on analogy theory, the ratios of Chilton–Colburn factor to friction factor for different fluid flow cases are investigated, which from another aspect show the significant enhancement in heat transfer performance for some cases of water-based nanofluid and VFBN turbulent flows.

On the tip sharpness of riblets for turbulent drag reduction

It is commonly known that riblets with sharper tip generally have better turbulent drag reduction capacity,which,however,poses great challenges for manufacturing and makes the riblets vulnerable to tip erosion.In this study,we show that a scalloped riblet which is not as sharp in the tip as corresponding triangular riblet with same height-width ratio,nevertheless has a larger protrusion height,a quantity solely depending on the riblet shape and calculated through a boundary element algorithm in this study,and thus a higher projected drag reduction rate.In addition,it is found that,when subjected to tip rounding,this scalloped riblet performs better in terms of protrusion height than corresponding parabolic riblet,which indicates stronger resilience to riblet tip erosion.With the class of scalloped riblets,designed by smoothly connecting two third-order polynomials and thus the tip sharpness and valley curvature can be well defined,it is revealed that two mechanisms,one for the valley curvature at the viscous limit and one for the tip sharpness at infinite deep limit,determine the protrusion height,and thus the projected drag reduction capacity.Direct numerical simulations are then carried out to investigate controlled boundary layer transition with the scalloped riblet of width s+=20 and 5+=60.A 7.8%drag reduction in the turbulent region is found for the smaller riblet with a preferable transition delay,while for the larger riblet transition is promoted and drag is increased in the turbulent region.It is also found that the area fraction of high drag region around the riblet tips is basically the same for the two cases.Surprisingly,even higher drag is found around the tip region for the smaller drag-reducing riblets.On the other hand,a much smaller drag coefficient is found in the valley of the smaller riblet,which results in the reduction of turbulent drag.It is thus inferred that the issue of sharp riblet tip,that hard to manufacture and deteriorate substantially when subjected to tip erosion,could be mitigated by optimization of the riblet geometry.

Analysis of heat transfer performance for turbulent viscoelastic fluid-based nanofluid using field synergy principle

In this paper,the field synergy principle is firstly performed on the viscoelastic fluid-based nanofluid and other relevant fluid in channel at turbulent flow state to scrutinize their heat transfer performance based on our direct numerical simulation database.The cosine values of intersection angle between velocity vector and temperature gradient vector are calculated for different simulated cases with varying nanoparticle volume fraction,nanoparticle diameter,Reynolds number and Weissenberg number.It is found that the filed synergy effect is enhanced when the nanoparticle volume fraction is increased,nanoparticle diameter is decreased and Weissenberg number is decreased,i.e.the heat transfer is also enhanced.However,the filed synergy effect is weakened with the increase of Reynolds number which may be the possible reason for the power function relationship in empirical correlation of heat transfer between heat transfer performance and Reynolds number with the constant power exponent lower than 1.Finally,it is also observed that the field synergy principle can be used to analyze the heat transfer process of viscoelastic fluid-based nanofluid at the turbulent flow state even if some negative cosine values of intersection angle exist in the flow field.

Numerical analysis of non-Newtonian rheology effect on hydrocyclone flow field

In view of the limitations of the existing Newton fluid effects on the vortex flow mechanism study,numerical analysis of non Newton fluid effects was presented.Using Reynolds stress turbulence model(RSM)and mixed multiphase flow model(Mixture)of FLUENT(fluid calculation software)and combined with the constitutive equation of apparent viscosity of non-Newtonian fluid,the typical non-Newtonian fluid(drilling fluid,polymer flooding sewage and crude oil as medium)and Newton flow field(water as medium)were compared by quantitative analysis.Based on the research results of water,the effects of non-Newtonian rheology on the key parameters including the combined vortex motion index n and tangential velocity were analyzed.The study shows that:non-Newtonian rheology has a great effect on tangential velocity and n value,and tangential velocity decreases with non-Newtonian increasing.The three kinds of n values(constant segment)are:0.564(water),0.769(polymer flooding sewage),0.708(drilling fluid)and their variation amplitudes are larger than Newtonian fluid.The same time,non-Newtonian rheology will lead to the phenomenon of turbulent drag reduction in the vortex flow field.Compared with the existing formula calculation results shown,the calculation result of non-Newtonian rheology is most consistent with the simulation result,and the original theory has large deviations.The study provides reference for theory research of non-Newtonian cyclone separation flow field.