An improvement on the theoretical model for the large-scale coherent structures in the outer region of a turbulent boundary layer

According to the experimental results, there exist large-scale coherent structures in the outer region of a turbulent boundary layer, which have been studied by many authors.As experimental results, Antonia (1990) showed the phase- aver aged streamlines and isovorticity lines of the large-scale coherent structures in a turbulent boundary layer for different Reynolds numbers. Based on the hydrodynamic stability theory, the 2-D theoretical model for the large-scale structures was proposed by Luo and Zhou, in which the eddy viscosity was defined as a complex function of the position in the normal direction. The theoretical results showed in ref. were in agreement with those in ref. However, there were two problems in the results. One is that in the experimental results, there were divergent focuses between two saddle points in the streamlines, but in the theoretical results, there were centers. The other is that the stretched parts of the isovorticity lines appear at the location of centers in the theoretical results, while in the experimental results they located somewhere between the focuses and saddle points. The reason is that the computations were based on a 2-D model.

Study of the shock motion in a hypersonic shock system turbulent boundary-layer interaction

Wall pressure fluctuations and surface heat transfer signals have been measured in the hypersonic turbulent boundary layer over a number of compression-corner models. The distributions of the separation shock oscillation frequencies and periods have been calculated using a conditional sampling algorithm. In all cases the oscillation frequency distributions are of broad band, but the most probable frequencies are low. The VITA method is used for deducing large scale disturbances at the wall in the incoming boundary layer and the separated flow region. The results at present showed the existence of coherent structures in the two regions. The zero-cross frequencies of the large scale structures in the two regions are of the same order as that of the separation shock oscillation. The average amplitude of the large scale structures in the separated region is much higher than that in the incoming boundary layer. The length scale of the separation shock motion region is found to increase with the disturbance strength. The results show that the shock oscillation is of inherent nature in the shock wave/turbulent boundary layer interaction with separation. The shock oscillation is considered to be the consequence of the coherent structures in the separated region.

Air flow over a mountain and the convective boundary-layer

In this paper, the analytical model coupling the convective boundary layer (CBL) with the free atmosphere developed by Qi and Fu (1992) is improved. And by this improved model, the interaction between airflow over a mountain and the CBL is further discussed. The conclusions demonstrate: (1) The perturbation potential temperatures in the free atmosphere can counteract the effect of orographic thermal forcing through entraining and mixing in the CBL. If u(M)BAR > u(F)BAR, the feedback of the perturbation potential temperatures in the free atmosphere is more important than orographic thermal forcing, which promotes the effect of interfacial waves. If u(M)BAR < u(F)BAR, orographic thermal forcing is more important, which makes the interfacial height and the topographic height identical in phase, and the horizontal speeds are a maximum at the top of the mountain. (2) The internal gravity waves propagating vertically in the free atmosphere cause a strong downslope wind to become established above the lee slope in the CBL and result in the hydraulic jump at the top of the CBL. (3) With the CBL deepening, the interfacial gravity waves induced by the potential temperature jump at the top of the CBL cause the airflow in the CBL to be subcritical.