Effects of pressure gradient histories on skin friction and mean flow of high Reynolds number turbulent boundary layers over smooth and rough walls

TL;DR

This study investigates how different pressure gradient histories affect skin friction and mean flow in high Reynolds number turbulent boundary layers over smooth and rough walls, proposing a new correlation for predicting skin friction.

Contribution

A novel correlation is developed to predict skin friction based solely on local wake strength and pressure gradient history in turbulent boundary layers.

Findings

Adverse pressure gradients increase wake strength and reduce skin friction.

Favorable pressure gradients decrease wake strength and increase skin friction.

The roughness length scale remains constant across different pressure gradient histories.

Abstract

Experiments are conducted over smooth and rough walls to explore the influence of pressure gradient histories on skin friction and mean flow of turbulent boundary layers. Different pressure gradient histories are imposed on the boundary layer through an aerofoil mounted in the freestream. Hot-wire measurements are taken at different freestream velocities downstream of the aerofoil where the flow has locally recovered to zero pressure gradient but retains the history effects. Direct skin friction measurements are also made using oil film interferometry for smooth walls and a floating element drag balance for rough walls. The friction Reynolds number, $Re_\tau$, varies between $3000$ and $27000$, depending both on the surface conditions and the freestream velocity ensuring sufficient scale separation. Results align with previous findings, showing that adverse pressure gradients just upstream of the measurement location increase wake strength and reduce the local skin friction while favourable pressure gradients suppress the wake and increase skin friction. The roughness length scale, $y_0$, remains constant across different pressure gradient histories for rough wall boundary layers. Inspired by previous works, a new correlation is proposed to infer skin friction based on the mean flow. The difference in skin friction between an arbitrary pressure gradient history and zero pressure gradient condition can be predicted using only the local wake strength parameter ($\Pi$), and the variations in wake strength for different histories are related to a weighted integral of the pressure gradient history normalised by local quantities. This allows us to develop a general correlation that can be used to infer skin friction for turbulent boundary layers experiencing arbitrary pressure-gradient histories.