The determination of the rate of dissipation in turbulent pipe flow

Measurements of turbulence energy diffusion and the spectral distributions of stress components in the core of turbulent pipe flow are presented. The results tend to confirm the proposal of Bradshaw (1967 a, b ) that an inertial subrange in the spectra can exist at quite modest laboratory Reynolds numbers. They also illuminate the inconsistencies in Laufer's (1954) measurements of dissipation and suggest that the fitting of a −5/3 power law to the spectra may well provide the most accurate method of determining dissipation for Re [gsim ] 10 5 .