A visual study of turbulent shear flow

The outer region of a turbulent boundary layer along a flat plate was photographed and analysed; in addition, limited observations of the wall area were also made. The technique involved suspending very small solid particles in water and photographing their motion with a high-speed camera moving with the flow. The single most important event observed in the outer region was fluid motion which in the convected view of the travelling camera appeared as a transverse vortex. This was a large-scale motion transported downstream almost parallel to the wall with an average velocity slightly smaller than the local mean. It appeared to be the result of an instability interaction between accelerated and decelerated fluid, and it is believed to be closely associated with the wall-region ejections. The transverse vortex was part of a deterministic sequence of events; although these events occurred randomly in space and time. The first of these events was a decelerated flow exhibiting velocities considerably smaller than the local mean. It was immediately followed by an accelerated flow. Both these events extended from near the wall to the far outer region. Their interaction resulted in the formation of one or more transverse vortices. While the transverse vortex was transported downstream, small-scale fluid elements, originating in the wall area of the decelerated flow, were ejected outwards (ejection event). After travelling some distance outwards the ejected elements interacted with the oncoming accelerated fluid in the wall region and were subsequently swept downstream (sweep event). The sequence of events closed with two large-scale motions. Estimated positive and negative contributions to the instantaneous Reynolds stress during the events were many times higher than the local mean values.