Previous experimental and numerical studies have revealed that the hairpin vortex is a basic flow element of transitional boundary layer. The hairpin vortex is believed to have legs, necks and a ring head. Based on ou...Previous experimental and numerical studies have revealed that the hairpin vortex is a basic flow element of transitional boundary layer. The hairpin vortex is believed to have legs, necks and a ring head. Based on our DNS study, the legs and the ring head are generated separately by different mechanisms. The legs function like an engine to generate low speed zones by rotation, create shear layers with surrounding high speed neighbor fluids, and further cause vortex ring formation through shear layer instability. In addition, the ring head is Ω-shaped and separated from quasi-streamwise legs from the beginning. Contrary to the classical concept of ＂vortex breakdown＂, we believe transition from laminar flow to turbulence is a ＂buildup＂ process of multiple level vortical structures. The vortex tings of first level hairpins are mostly responsible for positive spikes, which cause new vorticity rollup, second level vortex leg formation and finally smaller second level vortex ring generation. The third and lower level vortices are generated following the same mechanism. In this paper, the physical process from A-vortex to mul- ti-level hairpin vortices is described in detail.展开更多
基金Department of Mathematics at University of Texas at Arlington.The authors are grateful to Texas Advanced Computing Center(TACC)for the computation hours provided.This work was accomplished by using Code DNSUTA released by Dr.C.Q.Liu at University of Texas at Arlington in 2009.Y.Q.Wang also would like to acknowledge the Chinese Scholarship Council(CSC)for financial support
文摘Previous experimental and numerical studies have revealed that the hairpin vortex is a basic flow element of transitional boundary layer. The hairpin vortex is believed to have legs, necks and a ring head. Based on our DNS study, the legs and the ring head are generated separately by different mechanisms. The legs function like an engine to generate low speed zones by rotation, create shear layers with surrounding high speed neighbor fluids, and further cause vortex ring formation through shear layer instability. In addition, the ring head is Ω-shaped and separated from quasi-streamwise legs from the beginning. Contrary to the classical concept of ＂vortex breakdown＂, we believe transition from laminar flow to turbulence is a ＂buildup＂ process of multiple level vortical structures. The vortex tings of first level hairpins are mostly responsible for positive spikes, which cause new vorticity rollup, second level vortex leg formation and finally smaller second level vortex ring generation. The third and lower level vortices are generated following the same mechanism. In this paper, the physical process from A-vortex to mul- ti-level hairpin vortices is described in detail.
