Particle image velocimetry study of fractal-generated turbulence

Abstract An experimental investigation involving space-filling fractal square grids is presented. The flow is documented using particle image velocimetry (PIV) in a water tunnel as opposed to previous experiments which mostly used hot-wire anemometry in wind tunnels. The experimental facility has non-negligible incoming free-stream turbulence (with 2. 8 % and 4. 4 % in the streamwise (u^ / U) and spanwise (v^ / U) directions, respectively) which presents a challenge in terms of comparison with previous wind tunnel results. An attempt to characterize the effects of the incoming free stream turbulence on the grid-generated turbulent flow is made and an improved wake-interaction length scale is proposed which enables the comparison of the present results with previous ones for both fractal square and regular grids. This length scale also proves to be a good estimator of the turbulence intensity peak location. Furthermore, a new turbulence intensity normalization capable of collapsing u^ / U for various grids in various facilities is proposed. Comparison with previous experiments indicates good agreement in turbulence intensities, Taylor microscale, as well as various other quantities, if the improved wake-interaction length scale is used. Global and local isotropy of fractal-generated turbulence is assessed using the velocity gradients of the two-component (2C) two-dimensional (2D) PIV and compared with regular grid results. Finally, the PIV data appear to confirm the new dissipation behaviour previously observed in hot-wire measurements.