Height-dependence of spatio-temporal spectra of wall-bounded turbulence – LES results and model predictions

Wavenumber–frequency spectra of the streamwise velocity component obtained from large-eddy simulations (LES) are presented. Following recent work we show that the main features, a Doppler shift and a Doppler broadening of frequencies, are captured by an advection model based on the Tennekes–Kraichnan random-sweeping hypothesis with additional mean flow. In this paper, we focus on the height-dependence of the spectra within the logarithmic layer of the flow. We furthermore benchmark an analytical model spectrum that takes the predictions of the random-sweeping model as a starting point and find good agreement with the LES data. We also quantify the influence of the LES grid resolution on the wavenumber–frequency spectra.