Passive Active Ve Reactive. Flow Controlpdf
Passive Active Ve Reactive. Flow Controlpdf
Passive Active Ve Reactive. Flow Controlpdf
U
2
U
2
a,R))
D
K.E.
dissipation of turbulence kinetic energy
d depth
dE energy ux
E elastic modulus
Ec Eckert number (v
2
o
,c
p
LT)
e internal energy per unit mass
F external forcing term
xv
xvi NOMENCLATURE
F exural rigidity of a compliant surface; also probability distribution
F external force vector
F
i j
force eld between two molecules i and j
F
f
(o)
Maxwellian velocity distribution
G rst elastic constant (shear modulus of rigidity)
Gr Grashof number (g LT L
3
,
2
)
g acceleration of gravity
g
i
component of body force per unit mass
H shape factor (ratio of displacement thickness to momentum thickness)
h riblet height; also channel depth; also convective heat transfer coefcient
i imaginary number (i =
) collision integral
Kn Knudsen number (L,L)
k spring constant; also Boltzmann constant
k
+
probe length in wall units (=,
)
M( ) dispersion relation
Ma Mach number (v
o
,a
o
)
m mass; also molecular mass
N number of molecules
Nu Nusselt number (dimensionless temperature gradient at the surface)
n modal amplication; also exponent in velocity power-law; also number
density
n outward unit normal vector
P bursting period
P sensoractuator power consumption
P mean pressure
P
K.E.
production of turbulence kinetic energy
Pe P eclet number (v
o
L,
T
= Pr Re)
Pr Prandtl number (,
T
)
p thermodynamic pressure
p
i
inlet pressure
p
o
outlet pressure
p
pressure uctuations
q
2
twice turbulence kinetic energy
q
k
heat ux vector (k = 1. 2. 3)
q
x
tangential heat ux
q
y
normal heat ux
R radius of curvature
NOMENCLATURE xvii
R gas constant
Ra Rayleigh number (=Gr Pr)
Re Reynolds number (v
o
L,)
Re
a
Reynolds number based on centerline velocity and pipe radius
Re
c
Reynolds number based on chord and freestream velocity
Re
crit
critical Reynolds number
Re
x
Reynolds number based on distance from leading edge and freestream
velocity
Re
2
v
v
Kn
ambient temperature
t time
t
freestream velocity
u velocity vector
u
uid
uid velocity at wall
u
k
instantaneous velocity component (u. v. w)
u
k
velocity uctuations
u
wall
wall velocity
u
,t
w
,)
u
i
imaginary part of (determines spatial growth of disturbance)
r
wave number (real part of )
coefcient of thermal expansion (also called bulk expansion coefcient)
I circulation
specic heat ratio (isentropic exponent)
(x) local circulation in a vortex sheet per unit length
shear rate
c
critical value of shear rate
Lp
ki
Kronecker delta (unit second-order tensor)
momentum thickness
displacement thickness
c characteristic energy scale
c
wf
energy scale for walluid interaction
normalized rotor eccentricity
ratio of surface wave speed to transverse wave speed
compliant coating displacement in y-direction; also Kolmogorov length
scale
O second elastic constant
von K arm an constant
f
thermal conductivity of uid
s
thermal conductivity of solid
A Pohlhausen parameter (ratio of pressure forces to viscous forces)
second coefcient of viscosity
+
z
spanwise mean-streak-spacing (in wall units)
j rst coefcient of viscosity
kinematic viscosity (=j,)
T
thermal diffusivity (=
f
,c
p
)
compliant coating displacement in x-direction
molecular velocity vector
r
relative speed between two molecules
H prole parameter
uid density
NOMENCLATURE xix
s
solid density
ki
stress tensor (surface force per unit area)
molecular diameter (molecular length scale)
T
thermal accommodation coefcient
v
tangential-momentum-accommodation coefcient
wf
length scale for wall-uid interaction
shear stress; also molecular time scale; also tangential momentum ux
w
wall shear stress
characteristic roughness height
dissipation function
i
instantaneous vorticity component
Subscripts
0 conditions at y = 0
i imaginary part; also incident variable
longitudinal direction
o conditions outside boundary layer; also reference quantity
r real part; also reected variable
rms root mean square
s solid variable
t transverse direction
w conditions at wall
far-eld or ambient conditions
Superscripts
turbulence uctuations; also derivative w.r.t. (y,)
+ variable expressed in wall units
t
___
V
dV =
__
A
u
k
dA
k
(2.1)
where is the uid density and u
k
is an instantaneous velocity component (u, v, w).
The independent variables are time t and the three spatial coordinates x
1
, x
2
, and x
3
or (x, y, z). The innitesimal volume dV = dxdy dz. Finally, the Einsteins summation
convention applies to all repeated indices.
12 GOVERNING EQUATIONS
Applying the Gauss divergence theorem of vector calculus converts the surface
integral in Eq. (2.1) into a volume one, and the equation reads
___
V
t
dV =
___
V
x
k
(u
k
) dV (2.2)
Note that because time and space are independent, the time derivative and volume
integral are commuted in the left-hand side of the preceding equation.
The last step to derive the differential form of the continuity equation involves
simply moving the right-hand side of Eq. (2.2) to the left-hand side and arguing that
because the control volume is arbitrary, the resulting equation can be fullled only if
the integrand is zero at each point in space. Thus, at every point in spacetime
t
+
x
k
(u
k
) = 0 (2.3)
2.1.2 Newtons Second Law
If the physical property under consideration is momentum, then according to
Newtons second lawsurface and body forces constitute, respectively, the surface and
volume sources of momentum. Conservation of momentum thus reads: Time rate of
increase of momentum inside the control volume =(rate of convective outux of
momentum across the control surface) + surfaces forces + body forces. The integral
form of the momentum equation can therefore be written as
1
t
___
V
u
i
dV =
__
A
(u
k
n
k
) u
i
dA
+
__
A
ki
n
k
dA+
___
V
g
i
dV (2.4)
where
ki
is the second-order stress tensor (surface force per unit area), and g
i
is the
body force per unit mass. Body forces apply to the entire mass of a uid element and
are due to external elds such as gravity and electromagnetic potential. A discussion
of the latter kind of body force will be included in Chapter 14. Equation (2.4) is of
course a vector equation valid for i = 1, 2, and 3.
Once again all the surface integrals in Eq. (2.4) are converted to volume integrals
using the divergence theorem, and thus the momentum integral equation reads
___
V
t
(u
i
) dV =
___
V
x
k
(u
k
u
i
) dV
+
___
V
ki
x
k
dV +
___
V
g
i
dV (2.5)
The differential formof the momentumequation follows immediately fromequat-
ing the integrand in Eq. (2.5) to zero, thus
t
(u
i
) +
x
k
(u
k
u
i
) =
ki
x
k
+g
i
(2.6)
1
If the frame of reference is noninertial (i.e., if it accelerates linearly, rotates relative to an inertial frame,
or both), additional acceleration terms are needed in the momentum balance.
2.1 THE FUNDAMENTAL EQUATIONS 13
This can readily be simplied by invoking the continuity equation (2.3) to read nally
_
u
i
t
+u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
ki
x
k
+g
i
(2.7)
Each term in the Cauchys equation of motion (2.7) has units of force per unit vol-
ume. An equation for the angular momentum can be derived in a way similar to
the derivation of the linear momentum equation above. Also, taking the curl of
Eq. (2.7) leads to the equation for vorticity.
2.1.3 Conservation of Energy
Here the conserved physical property under consideration is the intrinsic energy
of a thermodynamic system. For convenience, we choose the intrinsic energy per unit
mass to be
2
the sum of internal energy e and kinetic energy
1
2
u
i
u
i
. For nonrelativistic
motions, energy cannot be created or destroyed. The rst law of thermodynamics
states: Time rate of change of intrinsic energy inside the control volume =(rate of
convective outux of energy across the control surface) (rate of heat transfer due to
conduction and radiation out of the control surface) + rate of work done by surface
and body forces. The integral formof the energy equation can therefore be written as
t
___
V
_
e +
1
2
u
2
i
_
dV =
__
A
u
k
_
e +
1
2
u
2
i
_
dA
k
__
A
q
k
dA
k
+
__
A
u
i
ki
dA
k
+
___
V
u
i
g
i
dV
(2.8)
where q
k
is the sum of heat ux vectors due to conduction and radiation, and a
summation over i is implied in u
2
i
. All the surface integrals in Eq. (2.8) are converted
to volume integrals using the divergence theorem, and thus the integral form of the
conservation of energy equation now reads
___
V
t
_
_
e +
1
2
u
2
i
__
dV
=
___
V
x
k
_
u
k
_
e +
1
2
u
2
i
__
dV
___
V
q
k
x
k
dV +
___
V
(u
i
ki
)
x
k
dV +
___
V
u
i
g
i
dV (2.9)
The differential form of the energy equation follows from equating the integrand
in Eq. (2.9) to zero and invoking the continuity equation (2.3), thus
_
e +
1
2
u
2
i
_
t
+u
k
_
e +
1
2
u
2
i
_
x
k
_
=
q
k
x
k
+
(u
i
ki
)
x
k
+u
i
g
i
(2.10)
2
We can include the potential energy as part of the intrinsic energy. In that case, however, the work done
by the body forces should not be included in the energy balance.
14 GOVERNING EQUATIONS
An equation for the kinetic energy per unit volume
1
2
u
i
u
i
can be derived simply
by taking the dot product of u
i
with the momentum equation (2.7). The resulting
equation reads
_
1
2
u
2
i
_
t
+u
k
_
1
2
u
2
i
_
x
k
_
= u
i
ki
x
k
+u
i
g
i
(2.11)
and states that the rate of increase of kinetic energy following a uid material ele-
ment = rate of work done by the net surface forces + rate of work done by body
forces. The thermal energy equation is readily obtained by subtracting Eq. (2.11)
from Eq. (2.10) to yield
_
e
t
+u
k
e
x
k
_
=
q
k
x
k
+
ki
u
i
x
k
(2.12)
The second term in the right-hand side is the deformation work done (per unit time)
by the surface forces and contains both reversible and irreversible contributions (as
dictated by the second lawof thermodynamics) to internal energy. Body forces do not
contribute directly to internal energy, and Eq. (2.12) states that the rate of increase
of internal energy of a uid material element is proportional to the sum of the net
rate of heat inow and the net rate of work done by surface forces.
2.2 Closing the Equations
Equations (2.3), (2.7), and (2.12) constitute ve differential equations for the 17 un-
knowns , u
i
,
ki
, e, and q
k
. Absent any body couples, the stress tensor is symmetric,
having only six independent components, which reduces the number of unknowns
to 14. Obviously, the continuum ow equations do not form a determinate set. To
close the conservation equations, the relation between the stress tensor and defor-
mation rate, the relation between the heat ux vector and the temperature eld, and
the appropriate equations of state relating the different thermodynamic properties
are needed. The stressrate of strain relation and the heat uxtemperature relation
are approximately linear if the ow is not too far from thermodynamic equilibrium.
This is a phenomenological result but can be rigorously derived from the Boltzmann
equation for a dilute gas if it is assumed that the ow is near equilibrium (see
Chapter 13).
For a Newtonian, isotropic, Fourier,
3
ideal gas, for example, these relations read
ki
= p
ki
+
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
_
+
_
u
j
x
j
_
ki
(2.13)
q
i
=
f
T
x
i
+Heat ux due to radiation (2.14)
de = c
v
dT and p = RT (2.15)
3
Newtonian implies a linear relation between the stress tensor and the symmetric part of the deformation
tensor (rate of strain tensor). The isotropy assumption reduces the 81 constants of proportionality in
that linear relation to two constants. Fourier uid is that for which the conduction part of the heat ux
vector is linearly related to the temperature gradient, and again isotropy implies that the constant of
proportionality in this relation is a single scalar.
2.2 CLOSING THE EQUATIONS 15
where p is the thermodynamic pressure, and are the rst and second coefcients
of viscosity, respectively,
ki
is the unit second-order tensor (Kronecker delta),
f
is the uid thermal conductivity, T is the temperature eld, c
v
is the specic heat
at constant volume, and R is the gas constant given by the Boltzmann constant
divided by the mass of an individual molecule (R=k/m). The Stokes hypothesis
relates the rst and second coefcients of viscosity, +
2
3
=0, although the validity
of this assumption has occasionally been questioned (Gad-el-Hak, 1995). Given the
preceding constitutive relations, and if radiative heat transfer is neglected,
4
Eqs. (2.3),
(2.7), and (2.12), respectively, read
t
+
x
k
(u
k
) = 0 (2.16)
_
u
i
t
+u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
p
x
i
+g
i
+
x
k
_
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
_
+
ki
u
j
x
j
_
(2.17)
c
v
_
T
t
+u
k
T
x
k
_
=
x
k
_
f
T
x
k
_
p
u
k
x
k
+ (2.18)
The three components of the vector equation (2.17) are the NavierStokes equations
expressing the conservation of momentum for a Newtonian uid. In the thermal
energy equation (2.18), is the always positive
5
dissipation function expressing the
irreversible conversion of mechanical energy to internal energy as a result of the
deformation of a uid element. The second term on the right-hand side of Eq. (2.18)
is the reversible work done (per unit time) by the pressure as the volume of a uid
material element changes. For a Newtonian, isotropic uid, the viscous dissipation
rate is given by
=
1
2
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
_
2
+
_
u
j
x
j
_
2
(2.19)
There are now six unknowns, , u
i
, p, and T, and the ve coupled equations (2.16),
(2.17), and (2.18) plus the equation of state relating pressure, density, and temper-
ature. These six equations together with sufcient numbers of initial and boundary
conditions constitute a well-posed, albeit formidable, problem. The system of equa-
tions (2.16)(2.18) is an excellent model for the laminar or turbulent ow of most
uids such as air and water under most circumstances, including high-speed gas ows
for which the shock waves are thick relative to the mean free path of the molecules.
6
Considerable simplication is achieved if the owis assumed to be incompressible,
which is usually a reasonable assumption provided that the characteristic ow speed
is less than 0.3 of the speed of sound.
7
The incompressibility assumption is readily
satised for almost all liquid ows and many gas ows. In such cases, the density
is assumed to be either a constant or a given function of temperature (or species
4
A reasonable assumption when dealing with low to moderate temperatures because the radiative heat
ux is proportional to T
4
.
5
As required by the second law of thermodynamics.
6
This condition is met if the shock Mach number is less than 2.
7
Although, as will be demonstrated in the following section, there are circumstances when even a low-
Mach-number ow should be treated as compressible.
16 GOVERNING EQUATIONS
concentration).
8
The governing equations for such ow are
u
k
x
k
= 0 (2.20)
_
u
i
t
+u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
p
x
i
+
x
k
_
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
__
+g
i
(2.21)
c
p
_
T
t
+u
k
T
x
k
_
=
x
k
_
f
T
x
k
_
+
incomp
(2.22)
where
incomp
is the incompressible limit of Eq. (2.19). These are ve equations for the
ve dependent variables u
i
, p, and T. Note that the left-hand side of Eq. (2.22) has the
specic heat at constant pressure c
p
and not c
v
. It is the convection of enthalpyand
not internal energythat is balanced by heat conduction and viscous dissipation.
This is the correct incompressible-ow limit of a compressible uid, as discussed
in detail in Section 10.9 of Panton (1996), which is a subtle point, perhaps, but
one that is frequently missed in textbooks. The system of equations (2.20)(2.22)
is coupled if either the viscosity or density depends on temperature; otherwise, the
energy equation is uncoupled from the continuity and momentum equations and can
therefore be solved after the velocity and pressure elds are determined.
In nondimensional form, the incompressible ow equations read
u
k
x
k
= 0 (2.23)
_
u
i
t
+u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
p
x
i
+
Gr
Re
2
T
i 3
+
x
k
_
F
(T)
Re
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
__
(2.24)
_
T
t
+u
k
T
x
k
_
=
x
k
_
1
Pe
T
x
k
_
+
Ec
Re
F
(T)
incomp
(2.25)
where F
t
+
x
k
(u
k
) = 0 (2.26)
_
u
i
t
+ u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
p
x
i
+g
i
(2.27)
c
v
_
T
t
+ u
k
T
x
k
_
= p
u
k
x
k
(2.28)
8
Within the so-called Boussinesq approximation, density variations have negligible effect on inertia but
are retained in the buoyancy terms. The incompressible continuity equation is therefore used.
2.3 COMPRESSIBILITY 17
The Euler equation (2.27) can be integrated along a streamline, and the resulting
Bernoullis equation provides a direct relation between the velocity and pressure.
All the eld equations recited thus far are valid at all points in space and time and
can be used for either laminar or turbulent ows. Three forms of the equations of
motion are particularly useful to ow control: the x, y, and z momentum equations
written at the wall, the ensemble average of the instantaneous equations for turbulent
ows, and the integral form of the differential equations. Those forms will be given
in the three sections immediately following the section on compressibility.
2.3 Compressibility
The issue of whether to consider the continuum ow compressible or incompress-
ible seems to be rather straightforward but is in fact full of potential pitfalls. If the
local Mach number is less than 0.3, then the ow of a compressible uid like air
canaccording to the conventional wisdombe treated as incompressible. But the
well-known Ma <0.3 criterion is only a necessary but not a sufcient condition to
allow a treatment of the ow as approximately incompressible. In other words, there
are situations in which the Mach number can be exceedingly small, whereas the ow
is compressible. As is well documented in heat transfer textbooks, strong wall heat-
ing or cooling may cause the density to change sufciently and the incompressible
approximation to break down, even at low speeds. Less known is the situation en-
countered in some microdevices in which the pressure may strongly change owing
to viscous effects even though the speeds may not be high enough for the Mach
number to go above the traditional threshold of 0.3. Corresponding to the pressure
changes would be strong density changes that must be taken into account when writ-
ing the continuum equations of motion. In this section, we systematically explain all
situations in which compressibility effects must be considered.
Let us rewrite the full continuity equation (2.3) as follows
D
Dt
+
u
k
x
k
=0 (2.29)
where
D
Dt
is the substantial derivative (
t
+ u
k
x
k
) expressing changes following a
uid element. The proper criterion for the incompressible approximation to hold
is that (
1
D
Dt
) is vanishingly small. In other words, if density changes following a uid
particle are small, the ow is approximately incompressible. Density may change
arbitrarily from one particle to another without violating the incompressible ow as-
sumption. This is the case, for example, in the stratied atmosphere and ocean where
the variable-density/temperature/salinity ow is often treated as incompressible.
From the state principle of thermodynamics, we can express the density changes
of a simple system in terms of changes in pressure and temperature,
=( p, T) (2.30)
From the chain rule of calculus,
1
D
Dt
=
Dp
Dt
DT
Dt
(2.31)
where and are, respectively, the isothermal compressibility coefcient and the
18 GOVERNING EQUATIONS
bulk expansion coefcienttwo thermodynamic variables that characterize the uid
susceptibility to change of volume, which are dened by the following relations:
( p, T)
1
T
(2.32)
( p, T)
1
p
(2.33)
For ideal gases, =1/p, and =1/T. Note, however, that in the following arguments
it will not be necessary to invoke the ideal gas assumption.
The ow must be treated as compressible if pressure or temperature changes, or
both are sufciently strong. Equation (2.31) must of course be properly nondimen-
sionalized before deciding whether a termis large or small. Here in, we followclosely
the procedure detailed in Panton (1996).
Consider rst the case of adiabatic walls. Density is normalized with a reference
value
o
, velocities with a reference speed v
o
, spatial coordinates and time with,
respectively, L and L/v
o
, and the isothermal compressibility coefcient and bulk
expansion coefcient with reference values
o
and
o
, respectively. The pressure
is nondimensionalized with the inertial pressure scale
o
v
2
o
. This scale is twice the
dynamic pressure (i.e., the pressure change as an inviscid uid moving at the reference
speed is brought to rest).
Temperature changes for the case of adiabatic walls result from the irreversible
conversion of mechanical energy into internal energy via viscous dissipation. Tem-
perature is therefore nondimensionalized as follows:
T
=
T T
o
_
o
v
2
o
o
_ =
T T
o
Pr
_
v
2
o
c
po
_ (2.34)
where T
o
is a reference temperature;
o
,
o
, and c
p
o
are, respectively, reference viscos-
ity, thermal conductivity and specic heat at constant pressure; and Pr is the reference
Prandtl number (
o
c
p
o
)/
o
.
The scaling used above for pressure is based on the Bernoullis equation and
therefore neglects viscous effects. This particular scaling guarantees that the pressure
term in the momentum equation will be of the same order as the inertia term. The
temperature scaling assumes that the conduction, convection, and dissipation terms
in the energy equation have the same order of magnitude. The resulting dimensionless
form of Eq. (2.31) reads
1
Dt
=
o
Ma
2
_
Dp
Dt
PrB
A
DT
Dt
_
(2.35)
where the superscript
indicates a nondimensional quantity, Ma is the reference
Mach number (Ma v
o
/a
o
, where a
o
is the reference speed of sound), and A and
B are dimensionless constants dened by A
o
o
c
p
o
T
o
, and B
o
T
o
. If the
scaling is properly chosen, the terms having the
superscript in the right-hand side
should be of order one, and the relative importance of such terms in the equations of
motion is determined by the magnitude of the dimensionless parameter(s) appearing
to their left (e.g., Ma, Pr, etc.). Therefore, as Ma
2
0, temperature changes due to
2.3 COMPRESSIBILITY 19
viscous dissipation are neglected (unless Pr is very large, as for example in the case
of highly viscous polymers and oils). Within the same order of approximation, all
thermodynamic properties of the uid are assumed constant.
Pressure changes are also neglected in the limit of zero Mach number. Hence,
for Ma <0.3 (i.e., Ma
2
<0.09), density changes following a uid particle can be
neglected and the owcan then be approximated as incompressible.
9
However, there
is a caveat in this argument. Pressure changes due to inertia can indeed be neglected at
small Mach numbers, and this is consistent with the way we nondimensionalized the
pressure termabove. If, on the other hand, pressure changes are mostly due to viscous
effects, as is the case, for example, in a long microduct or a microgas bearing, pressure
changes may be signicant even at low speeds (low Ma). In that case the term
Dp
Dt
in
Eq. (2.35) is no longer of order one and may be large regardless of the value of Ma.
Density then may change signicantly, and the ow must be treated as compressible.
Had pressure been nondimensionalized using the viscous scale (
o
v
o
L
) instead of the
inertial one (
o
v
2
o
), the revised Eq. (2.35) would have had Re
1
appearing explicitly
in the rst termin the right-hand side, accentuating the importance of this termwhen
viscous forces dominate.
A similar result can be gleaned when the Mach number is interpreted as follows:
Ma
2
=
v
2
o
a
2
o
= v
2
o
s
=
o
v
2
o
p
=
o
(2.36)
where s is the entropy. Again, the preceding equation assumes that pressure changes
are inviscid, and therefore a small Mach number means negligible pressure and
density changes. In a ow dominated by viscous effectssuch as that inside a
microductdensity changes may be signicant even in the limit of zero Mach
number.
Experiments in gaseous microducts conrm the arguments above. For both low-
and high-Mach-number ows, pressure gradients in long microchannels are non-
constant, consistent with the compressible ow equations. Such experiments were
conducted by, among others, Prudhomme, Chapman, and Bowen (1986); Pfahler
et al. (1991); van den Berg, Seldam, and Gulik (1993); Liu et al. (1993, 1995); Pong
et al. (1994); Harley, Bau, and Zemel (1995); Piekos and Breuer (1996); Arkilic
(1997); and Arkilic, Schmidt, and Breuer (1995, 1997a,b). We will return to this
issue in Chapter 13.
Identical arguments can be made in the case of isothermal walls. Here strong
temperature changes may be the result of wall heating or cooling even if viscous
dissipation is negligible. The proper temperature scale in this case is given in terms
of the wall temperature T
w
and the reference temperature T
o
as follows:
T =
T T
o
T
w
T
o
(2.37)
where
T is the new dimensionless temperature. The nondimensional form of
9
With an error of about 10% at Ma = 0.3, 4% at Ma = 0.2, 1% at Ma = 0.1, and so on.
20 GOVERNING EQUATIONS
Eq. (2.31) now reads
1
Dt
=
o
Ma
2
Dp
Dt
B
_
T
w
T
o
T
o
_
D
T
Dt
(2.38)
Here we notice that the temperature term is different from that in Eq. (2.35). The
Ma is no longer appears in this term, and strong temperature changes such as large
(T
w
T
o
)/T
o
may cause strong density changes regardless of the value of the Mach
number. Additionally, the thermodynamic properties of the uid are not constant
but depend on temperature, and as a result the continuity, momentum, and energy
equations all couple. The pressure term in Eq. (2.38), on the other hand, is exactly
as it was in the adiabatic case, and the same arguments made before apply: the ow
should be considered compressible if Ma > 0.3 or if pressure changes due to viscous
forces are sufciently large.
There are three additional scenarios in which signicant pressure and density
changes may take place without inertial, viscous, or thermal effects. First is the case
of quasi-static compression and expansion of a gas in, for example, a pistoncylinder
arrangement. The resulting compressibility effects are, however, compressibility of
the uid and not of the ow. Two other situations in which compressibility effects
must also be considered are problems with length scales comparable to the scale
height of the atmosphere and rapidly varying ows, as in sound propagation (see
Lighthill 1963b).
2.4 Equations of Motion at the Wall
In wall-bounded ows, the streamwise (x) and spanwise (z) momentum equations
written at the wall give very useful expressions of the wall uxes of, respectively, the
spanwise and streamwise vorticity. For an incompressible uid over a nonmoving
wall of small curvature, and if body forces are neglected, the streamwise, normal,
and spanwise momentum equations, written at y = 0, follow from Eq. (2.21) and
read
v
w
u
y
y=0
+
p
x
y=0
y=0
u
y
y=0
=
2
u
y
2
y=0
(2.39)
0 +
p
y
y=0
0 =
2
v
y
2
y=0
(2.40)
v
w
w
y
y=0
+
p
z
y=0
y=0
w
y
y=0
=
2
w
y
2
y=0
(2.41)
These equations are instantaneous and are valid for both laminar and turbulent ows.
Here, v
w
is the (positive) injection or (negative) suction velocity through the wall.
Upward or downward motion of the wall acts analogously to injection or suction.
The right-hand side of each of the three equations represents the curvature of the cor-
responding velocity prole, which in the case of the streamwisespanwise equation
is the same as the ux of spanwisestreamwise vorticity from the wall. Negative cur-
vature implies that the velocity prole is fuller and that the wall is a source (positive
2.5 TURBULENT FLOWS 21
ux) of vorticity. Whether the wall is a source or a sink of spanwisestreamwise
vorticity depends on whether uid is sucked or injected from the wall, whether
the streamwisespanwise pressure gradient is favorable or adverse, and whether the
wall viscosity is lower or higher than that above the surface. For a canonical tur-
bulent ow, the instantaneous velocity proles in all three directions change shape
continuously as a result of the random changes in the pressure eld.
2.5 Turbulent Flows
All the equations thus far are valid for nonturbulent as well as turbulent ows. How-
ever, in the latter case the dependent variables are in general random functions of
space and time. No straightforward method exists for obtaining stochastic solutions
of these nonlinear partial differential equations, and this is the primary reason why
turbulence remains as the last great unsolved problem of classical physics. Dimen-
sional analysis can be used to obtain crude results for a few cases, but rst-principles
analytical solutions are not possible even for the simplest conceivable turbulent
ow.
The contemporary attempts to use dynamical systems theory to study turbulent
ows have not yet reached fruition, especially at Reynolds numbers far above transi-
tion (Aubry et al. 1988), although advances in this theory have helped somewhat with
reducing and displaying the massive bulk of data resulting fromnumerical and exper-
imental simulations (Sen 1989). The recent book by Holmes, Lumley, and Berkooz
(1996) provides a useful, readable introduction to the emerging eld. It details a
strategy via which knowledge of coherent structures, nite-dimensional dynamical
systems theory, and the KarhunenLo` eve or proper orthogonal decomposition could
be combined to create low-dimensional models of turbulence that resolve only the
organized motion and describe their dynamical interactions. The utility of the dynam-
ical systems approach as an additional arsenal to tackle the turbulence conundrum
has been demonstrated only for turbulence near transition or near a wall, and thus
the ow would be relatively simple and a relatively small number of degrees of free-
dom would be excited. Holmes et al. (1996) summarize the (partial) successes that
have been achieved thus far using relatively small sets of ordinary differential equa-
tions and suggest a broad strategy for modeling turbulent ows as well as other
spatiotemporally complex systems.
The brute-force numerical integration of the instantaneous equations using the
supercomputer is prohibitively expensiveif not impossibleat practical Reynolds
numbers (Moin and Mahesh 1998). For the present at least, a statistical approach, in
which a temporal, spatial, or ensemble average is dened and the equations of motion
are written for the various moments of the uctuations about this mean, is the only
route available to get meaningful engineering results. Unfortunately, the nonlinearity
of the NavierStokes equations guarantees that the process of averaging to obtain
moments results in an open system of equations in which the number of unknowns
is always greater than the number of equations, and more or less heuristic modeling
is used to close the equations. This is known as the closure problem and again makes
obtaining rst-principle solutions to the (averaged) equations of motion impossible.
To illustrate the closure problem, consider the (instantaneous) continuity and
momentum equations for a Newtonian, incompressible, constant density, constant
22 GOVERNING EQUATIONS
viscosity turbulent ow. In this uncoupled version of the four equations (2.20) and
(2.21), for the four random unknowns u
i
and p, no general stochastic solution is
known to exist. But would it be feasible to obtain solutions for the nonstochastic
mean-ow quantities? As was rst demonstrated by Osborne Reynolds (1895) over
a century ago, all the eld variables are decomposed into a mean and a uctuation. Let
u
i
=U
i
+u
i
and p=P + p
, where U
i
and P are ensemble averages for the velocity
and pressure, respectively, and u
i
and p
_
U
i
t
+U
k
U
i
x
k
_
=
P
x
i
+
x
k
_
U
i
x
k
u
i
u
k
_
+ g
i
(2.43)
where, for clarity, the primes have been dropped from the uctuating velocity com-
ponents u
i
and u
k
.
This is now a system of 4 equations for the 10 unknowns U
i
, P, and u
i
u
k
.
10
The
momentum equation (2.43) is written in a form that facilitates the physical inter-
pretation of the turbulence stress tensor (Reynolds stresses), u
i
u
k
, as additional
stresses on a uid element to be considered along with the conventional viscous
stresses and pressure. An equation for the components of this tensor may be derived,
but it will contain third-order moments such as u
i
u
j
u
k
, and so on. The equations are
(heuristically) closed by expressing the second- or third-order quantities in terms of
the rst- or second-moments, respectively. For comprehensive reviews of these rst-
and second-order closure schemes, see Lumley (1983, 1987), Speziale (1991), and
Wilcox (1993).
2.6 The K arm an Integral Equation
The next useful equation results from integrating in the normal direction (from the
wall to the edge of the shear layer) and combining the continuity and streamwise
momentum equations, the latter of which is written in terms of a generic shear stress
(
xy
/y). The usual boundary layer approximations are invoked in the momentum
equation: (1) neglecting the normal stress terms relative to the shear stress terms, and
(2) assuming the pressure to be impressed upon the boundary layer from without.
The nal result is known as the K arm an integral equation. For a two-dimensional
(or axisymmetric) wall-bounded ow of a compressible uid and with body force
10
The second-order tensor u
i
u
k
is obviously a symmetric one with only six independent components.
2.6 THE K
ARM
AN INTEGRAL EQUATION 23
neglected, this equation is derived in Kays and Crawford (1993) and reads
C
f
2
=
1
U
2
o
t
(U
o
) +
x
w
v
w
o
U
o
+
__
2 +
_
1
U
o
U
o
x
+
1
o
x
+
1
R
R
x
_
(2.44)
Similar integral relations can be derived from the kinetic energy and thermal en-
ergy differential equations. In the momentum integral equation, the skin-friction
coefcient, the displacement thickness, and the momentum thickness are given by,
respectively,
C
f
w
1
2
o
U
2
o
(2.45)
_
0
_
1
u
o
U
o
_
dy (2.46)
_
0
u
o
U
o
_
1
u
U
o
_
dy (2.47)
Also, R is the transverse radius of curvature of the body of revolution (the corre-
sponding term in Eq. (2.44) drops for a two-dimensional ow),
o
and U
o
are the
density and velocity outside the boundary layer, respectively,
w
and v
w
are the density
and normal velocity of uid injected or sucked through the surface (or the upward
or downward wall velocity), and
w
is the shear stress at the wall.
Because the streamwise momentumequation leading to the K arm an integral equa-
tion was written in terms of a generic shear stress, the integral momentum equation
(2.44) is, in fact, valid for laminar and turbulent ows as well as for Newtonian
and non-Newtonian uids; the only assumption being made is that the ow is two-
dimensional (or axisymmetric) in the mean. In case of a turbulent ow, the mean
streamwise velocity, U(t, x, y), is used in the denition of
and
. For a two-
dimensional ow of a Newtonian uid,
w
=
U
y
y=0
+
V
x
y=0
(2.48)
The second termon the right-hand side of this equation vanishes if there is no injection
or suction (or upward or downward wall motion), or if the transpiration is spatially
uniform.
There is a seeming controversy that periodically ares up in the literature: Is
the K arm an integral equation accurate for a turbulent ow to within the rst-order
boundary-layer approximation? In the case of a two-dimensional, incompressible
turbulent ow, the streamwise momentum equation contains terms related to the
turbulence normal stresses, namely,
U
t
+U
U
x
+ V
U
y
=
P
o
x
+
x
_
v
2
u
2
_
+
xy
y
(2.49)
In the last term of this equation,
xy
is the sum of the viscous shear stress (
U
y
)
24 GOVERNING EQUATIONS
and the Reynolds shear stress ( uv). The second term on the right-hand side has
contributions from the fact that the pressure within the boundary layer is not quite
equal to that at the edge (the difference being v
2
) and from the turbulence nor-
mal stress term ( u
2
). The viscous normal stress terms corresponding to those two
Reynolds stress terms are, respectively,
V
y
and
U
x
. These clearly have smaller
orders of magnitude and are therefore dropped from Eq. (2.49). The question is
whether or not to retain the Reynolds normal stress terms. If the turbulence normal
stresses are retained, Eq. (2.49) cannot be integrated to yield the K arm an integral
equation. Given that the turbulence rms uctuations within a boundary layer are
typically one order of magnitude less than the mean velocity and that the term in
question is the difference between two small numbers, careful order-of-magnitude
analysis shows that indeed the second term on the right-hand side of Eq. (2.49)
can be neglected within the boundary-layer approximation (see also Hinze 1975).
The K arm an integral equation (2.44) for a turbulent wall-bounded ow is therefore
rst-order accurate.
CHAPTER THREE
Unifying Principles
Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means
of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics.
(Leonardo da Vinci, 14521519)
What experience and history teach is thisthat people and governments
never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced
from it.
(Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 17701831)
PROLOGUE
A particular control strategy is chosen based on the kind of ow and the control goal
to be achieved. Flow-control goals are strongly, often adversely, interrelated, and
there lies the challenge of making the tough compromises. There are several different
ways for classifying control strategies to achieve a desired effect. Presence or lack of
walls, Reynolds and Mach numbers, and the character of the ow instabilities are all
important considerations for the type of control to be applied. All these seemingly
disparate issues are what places the eld of owcontrol in a unied framework. They
will be discussed in turn in this chapter.
3.1 Control Goals and Their Interrelation
What does the engineer want to achieve when attempting to manipulate a particular
oweld? Typically he or she aims at reducing the drag; at enhancing the lift; at
augmenting the mixing of mass, momentum, or energy; at suppressing the ow-
induced noise; or at a combination thereof. To achieve any of these useful end results
for either free-shear or wall-bounded ows, transition fromlaminar to turbulent ow
may have to be delayed or advanced, ow separation may have to be prevented or
provoked, and nally turbulence levels may have to be suppressed or enhanced. All
these engineering goals and the corresponding ow changes intended to effect them
are schematically depicted in Figure 3.1. None of these are particularly difcult if
taken in isolation, but the challenge is to achieve a goal using a simple device that
is inexpensive to build as well as to operate, and, most important, has minimum
25
26 UNIFYING PRINCIPLES
Figure 3.1: Engineering goals and corresponding ow changes.
side effects. For this latter hurdle, the interrelation among control goals must be
elaborated, and this is what is attempted below.
Section 3.3 will contrast free-shear and wall-bounded ows. For the purposes of
the present argument, we focus on the latterparticularly the technologically very
important boundary layers. An external wall-bounded ow, such as that developing
on the exterior surfaces of an aircraft or a submarine, can be manipulated to achieve
transition delay, separation postponement, lift increase, skin-friction and pressure-
drag
1
reduction, turbulence augmentation, heat-transfer enhancement, or noise sup-
pression. These objectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The schematic in
Figure 3.2 is a partial representation of the interrelation between one control goal
and another. To focus the discussion further, think of the ow developing on a lift-
ing surface such as an aircraft wing. If the boundary layer becomes turbulent, its
resistance to separation is enhanced, and more lift could be obtained at increased
incidence. On the other hand, the skin-friction drag for a laminar boundary layer
can be as much as an order of magnitude less than that for a turbulent one. If tran-
sition is delayed, lower skin friction as well as lower ow-induced noise is achieved.
However, the laminar boundary layer can only support a very small adverse pressure
gradient without separation, and subsequent loss of lift and increase in form drag
occur. Once the laminar boundary layer separates, a free-shear layer forms and, for
moderate Reynolds numbers, transition to turbulence takes place. Increased entrain-
ment of high-speed uid because of the turbulent mixing may result in reattachment
1
Pressure drag includes contributions from ow separation, displacement effects, induced drag, wave
drag, and, for time-dependent motion of a body through a uid, virtual mass.
3.2 CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES 27
Figure 3.2: Interrelation between ow-control goals.
of the separated region and formation of a laminar separation bubble.
2
At higher
incidence, the bubble breaks down, either separating completely or forming a longer
bubble. In either case, the form drag increases and the lift-curves slope decreases.
The ultimate goal of all this is to improve the airfoils performance by increasing the
lift-to-drag ratio. However, induced drag is caused by the lift generated on a lifting
surface with a nite span. Moreover, more lift is generated at higher incidence, but
form drag also increases at these angles.
The preceding discussion points to potential conicts as one tries to achieve a
particular control goal only to adversely affect another goal. An ideal method of
control that is simple, inexpensive to build and operate, and does not have any
trade-offs does not exist, and the skilled engineer has to make continual compromises
to achieve a particular design goal.
3.2 Classication Schemes
There are different classication schemes for ow-control methods. One is to con-
sider whether the technique is applied at the wall or away fromit. Surface parameters
2
See Chapter 9 for more details about the formation and control of separation bubbles.
28 UNIFYING PRINCIPLES
that can inuence the ow include roughness, shape, curvature, rigid-wall motion,
compliance, temperature, and porosity. Heating and cooling of the surface can in-
uence the ow via the resulting viscosity and density gradients. Mass transfer can
take place through a porous wall or a wall with slots. Suction and injection of pri-
mary uid can have signicant effects on the oweld, inuencing particularly the
shape of the velocity prole near the wall and thus the boundary-layer susceptibil-
ity to transition and separation. Different additives, such as polymers, surfactants,
microbubbles, droplets, particles, dust, or bers, can also be injected through the
surface in water- or air-wall-bounded ows. Control devices located away from the
surface can also be benecial. Large-eddy breakup devices (also called outer-layer
devices or OLDs); acoustic waves bombarding a shear layer from outside; additives
introduced in the middle of a shear layer; manipulation of freestream turbulence
levels; and spectra, gust, and magneto- and electrohydrodynamic body forces are
examples of ow-control strategies applied away from the wall.
A second scheme for classifying ow-control methods considers energy expendi-
ture and the control loop involved. As shown in the schematic in Figure 3.3, a control
device can be passive, requiring no auxiliary power and no control loop, or active,
requiring energy expenditure. As for the action of passive devices, some prefer to use
the term ow management rather than ow control (Fiedler and Fernholz 1990), re-
serving the latter terminology for dynamic processes. Active control requires a control
Figure 3.3: Classication of ow-control strategies.
3.2 CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES 29
Figure 3.4: Different control loops for active ow control. (a) Predetermined, open-loop
control; (b) Reactive, feedforward, open-loop control; (c) Reactive, feedback, closed-loop
control.
loop and is further divided into predetermined or reactive categories. Predetermined
control includes the application of steady or unsteady energy input without regard
to the particular state of the ow. The control loop in this case is open, as shown
in Figure 3.4a, and no sensors are required. Because no sensed information is being
fed forward, this open control loop is not a feedforward one. This subtle point is
often misunderstood in the literature and results in predetermined control being con-
fused with reactive, feedforward control. Reactive
3
control is a special class of active
control in which the control input is continuously adjusted based on measurements
of some kind. The control loop in this case can either be an open feedforward one
(Figure 3.4b) or a closed feedback loop (Figure 3.4c). Classical control theory deals,
for the most part, with reactive control.
The distinction between feedforward and feedback is particularly important when
dealing with the control of ow structures that convect over stationary sensors and
3
Also termed, by some, interactive ow control. Reactive could be confused with chemically reacting
ows but is more proper linguistically to describe this particular control strategy.
30 UNIFYING PRINCIPLES
actuators. In feedforward control, the measured variable and the controlled variable
differ. For example, the pressure or velocity can be sensed at an upstream location,
and the resulting signal is used together with an appropriate control law to trigger an
actuator, which in turn inuences the velocity at a downstream position. Feedback
control, on the other hand, necessitates that the controlled variable be measured, fed
back, and compared with a reference input. Reactive feedback control is further clas-
sied into four categories: adaptive, physical-model-based, dynamical systems-based,
and optimal control (Moin and Bewley 1994). We will return to these categories in
Chapter 14.
Yet another classication scheme is to consider whether the control technique
directly modies the shape of the instantaneousmean velocity prole or selectively
inuences the small dissipative eddies. An inspection of the NavierStokes equations
written at the surface, Eqs. (2.39)(2.41), indicates that the spanwise and streamwise
4
vorticity uxes at the wall can be changed, either instantaneously or in the mean, via
wall motion or compliance, suction or injection, streamwise or spanwise pressure
gradient (respectively), or normal viscosity gradient. These vorticity uxes determine
the fullness of the corresponding velocity proles. For example, suction (or down-
ward wall motion), favorable pressure gradient, or lower wall viscosity results in
vorticity ux away from the wall, making the surface a source of spanwise and
streamwise vorticity. The corresponding fuller velocity proles have negative cur-
vature at the wall and are more resistant to transition and to separation but are
associated with higher skin-friction drag. Conversely, an inectional velocity prole
can be produced by injection (or upward wall motion), adverse pressure gradient,
or higher wall viscosity. Such prole is more susceptible to transition and to sep-
aration and is associated with lower, even negative, skin friction. Note that many
techniques are available to effect a wall-viscosity gradient; for example, surface heat-
ing or cooling, lm boiling, cavitation, sublimation, chemical reaction, wall injection
of lower or higher viscosity uid, and the presence of shear thinning or thickening
additive.
Flow-control devices can alternatively target certain scales of motion rather than
globally change the velocity prole. Polymers, riblets, and LEBUs, for example,
appear to selectively damp only the small dissipative eddies in turbulent wall-bounded
ows. These eddies are responsible for the (instantaneous) inectional prole and
the secondary instability in the buffer zone,
5
and their suppression leads to increased
scales, a delay in the reduction of the (mean) velocity-prole slope, and consequent
thickening of the wall region. In the buffer zone, the scales of the dissipative and
energy-containing eddies are roughly the same and, hence, the energy-containing
eddies will also be suppressed, resulting in reduced Reynolds stress production, mo-
mentum transport, and skin friction.
3.3 Free-Shear and Wall-Bounded Flows
Free-shear ows, such as jets, wakes, and mixing layers, are characterized by inec-
tional mean-velocity proles and are therefore susceptible to inviscid instabilities.
4
Streamwise vorticity exists only if the velocity eld is three-dimensional, instantaneously or in the mean.
5
See Chapter 5 for a description of the different regions of a turbulent wall-bounded ow.
3.4 REGIMES OF REYNOLDS AND MACH NUMBERS 31
Viscosity is only a damping inuence in this case, and the prime instability mech-
anism is vortical induction. Control goals for such ows include transition delay
or advancement, mixing enhancement, and noise suppression. External and internal
wall-bounded ows, such as boundary layers and channel ows, can also have inec-
tional velocity proles, but, in the absence of adverse pressure gradient and similar
effects, are characterized by noninectional proles and viscous instabilities, which
are then to be considered. These kind of viscosity-dominated, wall-bounded ows are
intrinsically stable and therefore are generally more difcult to control. Free-shear
ows and separated boundary layers, on the other hand, are intrinsically unstable
and lend themselves more readily to manipulation.
Free-shear ows originate from some kind of surface upstream, be it a nozzle,
a moving body, or a splitter plate, and ow-control devices can therefore be placed
on the corresponding walls, albeit far from the fully developed regions. Examples of
such control include changing the geometry of a jet exit from circular to elliptical
(Gutmark and Ho 1986), using periodic suction or injection in the lee side of a blunt
body to affect its wake (Williams and Amato 1989), and vibrating the splitter plate of
a mixing layer (Fiedler, Glezer, and Wygnanski 1988). These and other techniques are
extensively reviewed by Fiedler and Fernholz (1990), who offer a comprehensive list
of appropriate references, and more recently by Gutmark, Schadow, and Yu (1995);
Viswanath (1995); Fiedler (1998); and Gutmark and Grenstein (1999).
3.4 Regimes of Reynolds and Mach Numbers
The Reynolds number is the ratio of inertial to viscous forces and, absent centrifu-
gal, gravitational, electromagnetic and other unusual effects, Re determines whether
the ow is laminar or turbulent. It is dened as Re v
o
L/, where v
o
and L are,
respectively, suitable velocity and length scales, and is the kinematic viscosity. For
low-Reynolds-number ows, instabilities are suppressed by viscous effects and the
ow is laminar, as can be found in systems with large uid viscosity, small length
scale, or small velocity. The large-scale motion of highly viscous volcanic molten
rock and air and water ow in capillaries and microdevices are examples of laminar
ows. Turbulent ows seem to be the rule rather than the exception and occur in
or around most important uid systems such as airborne and waterborne vessels,
gas and oil pipelines, material processing plants, and the human cardiovascular and
pulmonary systems.
Because of the nature of their instabilities, free-shear ows undergo transition
at extremely low Reynolds numbers as compared with wall-bounded ows. Many
techniques are available to delay laminar-to-turbulence transition for both kinds of
ows, but these techniques are ineffective in the case of indenitely high Reynolds
numbers. Therefore, for Reynolds numbers beyond a reasonable limit, one should
not attempt to prevent transition but rather deal with the ensuing turbulence. Of
course early transition to turbulence can be advantageous in some circumstances
such as to achieve separation delay, enhanced mixing, or augmented heat trans-
fer. The task of advancing transition is generally simpler than trying to delay it.
Chapter 6 specically addresses the control of laminar-to-turbulence transition. For
now, we briey discuss transition control for various regimes of Reynolds and Mach
numbers.
32 UNIFYING PRINCIPLES
Three Reynolds number regimes can be identied for the purpose of reducing skin
friction in wall-bounded ows. First, if the owis laminar, typically at Reynolds num-
bers based on distance fromleading edge <10
6
, then methods of reducing the laminar
shear stress are sought. These are usually velocity-prole modiers such as adverse
pressure gradient, injection, cooling (in water), and heating (in air) that reduce the
fullness of the prole at the increased risk of premature transition and separation.
Secondly, in the range of Reynolds numbers from 110
6
to 410
7
, active and pas-
sive methods to delay transition as much as possible are sought. These techniques can
result in substantial savings and are broadly classied into two categories: stability
modiers and wave cancellation. The skin-friction coefcient in the laminar at plate
can be as much as an order of magnitude less than that in the turbulent case. Note,
however, that all the stability modiers such as favorable pressure gradient, suction,
or heating (in liquids) result in an increase in the skin friction over the unmodied
Blasius layer. The object is, of course, to keep this penalty below the potential saving,
that is, the net drag will be above that of the at-plate laminar boundary layer but
presumably well below the viscous drag in the at-plate turbulent ow. Thirdly, for
Re > 4 10
7
, transition to turbulence cannot be delayed with any known practical
method without incurring a penalty that exceeds the saving.
6
The task is then to
reduce the skin-friction coefcient in a turbulent boundary layer. Relaminarization
(Narasimha and Sreenivasan 1979) is an option, although achieving a net saving here
is problematic at present.
The Mach number is the ratio of a characteristic ow velocity to local speed of
sound, Ma v
o
/a
o
. It determines whether the ow is incompressible (Ma < 0.3) or
compressible (Ma > 0.3). The latter regime is further divided into subsonic (Ma < 1),
transonic (0.8 < Ma < 1.2), supersonic (Ma > 1), and hypersonic (Ma > 5). Each
of these owregimes lends itself to different optimummethods of control to achieve a
given goal. Take laminar-to-turbulence transition control as an illustration (Bushnell
1994). During transition, the eld of initial disturbances is internalized via a pro-
cess termed receptivity, and the disturbances are subsequently amplied by various
linear and nonlinear mechanisms. If it is assumed that bypass mechanisms, such as
roughness or high levels of freestream turbulence, are identied and circumvented,
delaying transition then is reduced to controlling the variety of possible linear modes:
TollmienSchlichting modes, Mack modes, crossow instabilities, and G ortler insta-
bilities. TollmienSchlichting instabilities dominate the transition, process for two-
dimensional boundary layers having Ma <4 and are damped by increasing the Mach
number, by wall cooling (in gases), and by the presence of favorable pressure gra-
dient. Contrast this with the Mack modes, which dominate for two-dimensional
hypersonic ows. Mack instabilities are also damped by increasing the Mach num-
ber and by the presence of favorable pressure gradient but are destabilized by wall
cooling. Crossow and G ortler instabilities are caused by, respectively, the develop-
ment of inectional crossow velocity prole and the presence of concave streamline
curvature. Both of these instabilities are potentially harmful across the speed range
but are largely unaffected by Mach number and wall cooling. The crossow modes
are enhanced by favorable pressure gradient, whereas the G ortler instabilities are
insensitive. Suction suppresses, to different degrees, all the linear modes discussed
here.
6
Passive compliant coatings may be an exception. See Chapter 7.
3.5 CONVECTIVE AND ABSOLUTE INSTABILITIES 33
3.5 Convective and Absolute Instabilities
In addition to grouping the different kinds of hydrodynamic instabilities as inviscid
or viscous, one could also classify them as convective or absolute based on the linear
response of the system to an initial localized impulse (Huerre and Monkewitz 1990).
A ow is convectively unstable if, at any xed location, this response eventually
decays in time (in other words, if all growing disturbances convect downstream from
their source). Convective instabilities occur when there is no mechanismfor upstream
disturbance propagation, as for example in the case of rigid-wall boundary layers. If
the disturbance is removed, then perturbation propagates downstream, and the ow
relaxes to an undisturbed state. Suppression of convective instabilities is particularly
effective when applied near the point where the perturbations originate.
If any of the growing disturbances has zero group velocity, the ow is absolutely
unstable. This means that the local systemresponse to an initial impulse grows in time.
Absolute instabilities occur when a mechanismexists for upstreamdisturbance prop-
agation, as for example in the separated ow over a backward-facing step in which
the ow recirculation provides such a mechanism. In this case, some of the growing
disturbances can travel back upstreamand continually disrupt the oweven after the
initial disturbance is neutralized. Therefore, absolute instabilities are generally more
dangerous and more difcult to control; nothing short of complete suppression will
work. In some owsfor example, two-dimensional blunt-body wakescertain re-
gions are absolutely unstable whereas others are convectively unstable. The upstream
addition of acoustic or electric feedback can change a convectively unstable ow to
an absolutely unstable one, and self-excited ow oscillations can thus be generated.
In any case, identifying the character of ow instability facilitates its effective control
(i.e., suppressing or amplifying the perturbation as needed).
CHAPTER FOUR
Coherent Structures
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The rst approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl: God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!
The second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried: Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me tis mighty clear
This wonder of a Elephant
Is very like a spear!
The third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake: I see, quoth he, the Elephant
Is very like a snake.
The fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain, quoth he;
Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!
The fth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: Een the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most: Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!
34
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4.1 THE CHANGING PARADIGMS OF TURBULENCE 35
The sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
I see, quoth he, the Elephant
Is very like a rope!
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
MORAL
So, oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
(John Godfrey Saxes, 18161887, version of the fable
The Blind Men and the Elephant, which occurs in the Ud ana,
a canonical Hindu scripture)
PROLOGUE
The relatively recent realization that organized structures play an important role in
all turbulent shear ows leads quite naturally to the concept of turbulence control
via direct interference with these deterministic events. Active, predetermined, open-
loop control can be employed, but perhaps reactive control can be used much more
effectively where specic coherent structures are sensed and then targeted for modu-
lation to achieve a useful end result such as drag reduction, lift enhancement, and so
forth. Reactive control strategies require sensors, actuators, and appropriate control
algorithms, as will be discussed in Chapter 14, but for the present chapter we provide
a gentle introduction to the fascinating world of coherent structures in transitional
and turbulent ows. First, we briey describe the different historical perspectives on
turbulence. Secondly, we dene what is meant by organized motions. This is followed
by a summary of what is known about coherent structures in free-shear ows. Lastly,
the important topic of coherent motions in wall-bounded ows is covered. This last
topic will be further explored from the perspective of Reynolds number effects in the
following chapter.
4.1 The Changing Paradigms of Turbulence
Turbulence is the last great unsolved problem of classical physics. Or so it goes for
a quote variously attributed to one of the great modern physicists Albert Einstein,
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
36 COHERENT STRUCTURES
Richard Feynman, Werner Heisenberg, or Arnold Sommerfeld. But in fact the closest
sentiments to this quote that could be traced were expressed by the classical physicist
Horace Lamb (1895), who actually wrote, starting with the second edition of his
celebrated book Hydrodynamics under the heading of Turbulent Motion: It remains
to call attention to the chief outstanding difculty of our subject. Ahumorous fable,
also attributed to several of the great ones, goes as follows. As he lay dying, the
modern physicist asked God two questions: Why relativity (or quantum mechanics,
depending on who is departing), and why turbulence? I really think, said the famed
physicist, He may have an answer to the rst question. No one knows how to
obtain stochastic solutions to the well-posed set of partial differential equations that
govern turbulent ows. Averaging those nonlinear equations to obtain statistical
quantities always leads to more unknowns than equations, and ad hoc modeling is
then necessary to close the problem. So, except for a rare few limiting cases, rst-
principle analytical solutions to the turbulence conundrum are not possible. In the
words of John Lumley (1996a), turbulence is a difcult problem that is unlikely
to suddenly succumb to our efforts. We should not await sudden breakthroughs
and miraculous solutions but rather keep at it slowly building one small brick at a
time.
Our struggle to conquer turbulence has been long and arduous with lots of sweat,
few victories, and much frustration. Not surprisingly, the way turbulence is being
viewed as a complex physical phenomenon has changed over the years. Indeed, key
ideas in the eld continue to rise and fall (Liepmann 1979) and perhaps even to rise
again! We now know that turbulence is random uctuations superimposed on mean
ow. A turbulent ow contains motions with numerous time and length scales that
are random in the sense that there is zero probability of any ow variable having a
particular value, and there is zero energy in any one particular frequency or wave
number. In other words, the probability density function and spectrum of any ow
variable are continuous and nite (Hunt, Carruthers, and Fung 1991). But we also
know that the seemingly random mess is at least in part deterministic: a combination
of coherent and incoherent motions.
Historically, there are perhaps ve doctrines in approaching the ve-century-old
conundrum: visualization, rst principles, the statistical approach, coherent struc-
tures, and modern tools. Each of these dogmas is described in turn in the following
ve subsections.
4.1.1 Visualization
Perhaps more than any other tool available to attack the problemof uid mechan-
ics in general and turbulence in particular, ow visualization is singly responsible for
many of the most exciting discoveries in the eld. Because visualization is relatively
simple and quick and is capable of giving both global and local behavior, rendering
the uid motion accessible to visual perception can yield invaluable qualitative as
well as quantitative information about a complex ow. However, one has to be ex-
tremely vigilant to avoid the many possible pitfalls when interpreting visual images
of uid ows, particularly time-dependent ows (Gad-el-Hak 1992).
Leonardo da Vinci pioneered the visualization genre close to 500 years ago. Much
of Leonardos notebooks of engineering and scientic observations were translated
into English in a magnicent two-volume book by MacCurdy (1938). Succulent
descriptions of the smooth and eddying motions of water alone occupy 121 pages.
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4.1 THE CHANGING PARADIGMS OF TURBULENCE 37
Figure 4.1: Leonardo da Vincis sketch of water exiting from a square hole into a pool; circa 1500.
In them, one can easily discern the Renaissance geniuss foreshadowing of some of
the turbulence physics to be discovered centuries after his time. Particularly relevant
to the present subject, the words eddies and eddying motions percolate throughout
Leonardos treatise on liquid ows.
Figure 4.1 represents perhaps the worlds rst use of visualization as a scientic
tool to study a turbulent ow. Around 1500, Leonardo sketched a free water jet
issuing from a square hole into a pool. He wrote, Observe the motion of the surface
of the water, which resembles that of hair, which has two motions, of which one is
caused by the weight of the hair, the other by the direction of the curls; thus the water
has eddying motions, one part of which is due to the principal current, the other to the
random and reverse motion.
1
Reecting on this passage, Lumley (1992) speculates
that Leonardo da Vinci may have pregured the now famous Reynolds turbulence
decomposition nearly 400 years prior to Osborne Reynolds own ow visualization
and analysis!
In describing the swirling water motion behind a bluff body, da Vinci provided
the earliest reference to the importance of vortices in uid motion: So moving water
strives to maintain the course pursuant to the power which occasions it and, if it
nds an obstacle in its path, completes the span of the course it has commenced
by a circular and revolving movement. Leonardo accurately sketched the pair of
quasi-stationary, counterrotating vortices in the midst of the random wake.
Finally, da Vincis words . . . The small eddies are almost numberless, and large
things are rotated only by large eddies and not by small ones, and small things are
1
This particular translation from the Italian original was made by Ugo Piomelli, University of Maryland.
It differs in several key points from that of MacCurdy (Watch the movement of the surface of water,
how like it is to that of hair, which has two movements, one following the undulation of the surface, the
other the lines of the curves: thus water forms whirling eddies, part following the impetus of the chief
current, part the rising and falling movement.), but on the basis of careful analysis Piomellis phrasing
appears to be more precise.
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38 COHERENT STRUCTURES
turned by both small eddies and large presage Richardsons cascade,
2
coherent struc-
tures, and large-eddy simulations, at least (John L. Lumley, private communication).
4.1.2 First Principles
At the time of Leonardo da Vinci, neither calculus nor the laws of mechanics
were available, of course.
3
Little more than a century and half after the incompara-
ble Newtons Principia Mathematica was published in 1687, the rst principles of
viscous uid ows were rmed in the formof the NavierStokes equations with major
contributions by Navier in 1823, Cauchy in 1828, Poisson in 1829, Saint-Venant in
1843, and Stokes in 1845. These equations of uid motion were derived in Chapter 2.
With very few exceptions, the NavierStokes equations provide an excellent model
for both laminar and turbulent ows. But in the latter case no analytical solutions
are possible for several reasons: (1) the governing partial differential equations are
nonlinear; (2) the dependent variables are random functions of space and time; and
(3) the usual simplications and symmetries do not apply to the instantaneous, three-
dimensional owquantities (although they may apply to statistical quantities). Thus,
even though the turbulence problem was well dened mathematically, no one could
integrate the equations of motion or for that matter do much with themwhen dealing
with stochastic phenomena.
For a century and half only laminar ows and their stability were tractable an-
alytically. Recent advances in computer power made it possible to return to rst
principles in the case of a turbulent owand numerically integrate the NavierStokes
equations for simple geometries and rather lowReynolds numbers. Notwithstanding
their rather severe restrictions and limitations, direct numerical simulations (DNS)
are therefore the only route available for a direct, brute-force onslaught on the tur-
bulence problem. On the other hand, numerical solutions overwhelm the senses with
data while providing little physical understanding.
4.1.3 Statistical View of Turbulence
As is clear fromthe previous subsection, up until recently not much could be done
with rst principles for the turbulence problem. But do we really need the kind of
detailed information that DNS provides for all the random ow variables? Would a
statistical description yielding such quantities as mean or root-mean-square values,
correlation functions, spectra, and probability distributions sufce? The answer is
an emphatic yes, but there is a price to pay for the lowered expectations.
On the basis of a painstaking ow visualization study, Osborne Reynolds (1883)
made the observation that a pipe ow is either direct or sinuous (laminar or tur-
bulent), depending on the value of a dimensionless parameter that we now call the
Reynolds number. Eleven years later, on 24 May 1894, Reynolds read to an audience
of the British Royal Society a follow-up paper in which he attempted to provide a
physical explanation for his earlier observation. That second treatise, published in
1895, is considered by many to have pioneered the modern scientic approach to
2
Richardsons (1920, 1922) poetic description (widely recited but often misquoted) of the turbulence
eddies within a cumulus cloud reads: Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocity, and little
whirls have lesser whirls and so on to viscosity.
3
Refer to Figure 1.1.
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4.1 THE CHANGING PARADIGMS OF TURBULENCE 39
the turbulence problem and even to have reshaped the direction of uid mechanics
research in general for the next century. Reynolds (1895) asserted that a turbulent
oweld could be decomposed into mean and uctuating parts. He thus was able
to write expressions for the time-averaged momentum, now known as the Reynolds
equations, in which convective stress terms appear as new unknowns. This was the
dawn of the statistical doctrine of turbulence research. Reynolds (1895) also derived
the transport equation for the turbulence kinetic energy and demonstrated that the
apparent stresses due to turbulence interacting with the mean velocity gradient lead
to a transfer of kinetic energy from the mean motion to the turbulent.
As was illustrated in Section 2.5, in the statistical approach a temporal, spatial, or
ensemble average is dened, and the equations of motion are written for the various
moments of the uctuations about this mean. Unfortunately, the nonlinearity of the
NavierStokes equations guarantees that the process of averaging to obtain moments
results in an open system of equations in which the number of unknowns is always
greater than the number of equations and more or less heuristic modeling is used
to close the equations. This is known as the closure problem, which again makes
obtaining rational solutions to the (averaged) equations of motion impossible.
Attempts to close the Reynolds equations are at the heart of the turbulence mod-
eling community. From the simple mixing length ideas of Prandtl, Taylor, and von
K arm an to the more involved Reynolds-stress or second-order modeling and beyond,
a whole new industry sprang out of the Reynolds decomposition (see, for example,
Lumley 1983, 1987; Speziale 1991; Wilcox 1993).
4.1.4 Reemergence of Coherent Structures
The recognition of coherent structures during the last few decades brought us
back a full circle to the time of Leonardo. Not only was visualization once again the
method of choice for the major discoveries, but it was also the reafrmation of the
importance of eddying motions and the copresence of large, organized motions and
small, random ones. In the view of Hussain (1986), the search for coherent events is
the embodiment of mans desire to nd order in apparent disorder.
The recent history of coherent structures is amply chronicled in the article by
Liu (1988). He asserts that the kernel idea germinated as a result of a discussion
that took place during the Fifth International Congress of Applied Mechanics held in
1938. There, both Tollmien and Prandtl, responding to a comment by von K arm an
regarding the difculties of reconciling a scalar mixing length with turbulence mea-
surements made in a channel, suggested that the measured turbulence uctuations
include both random and nonrandom elements. Dreyden (1948) pointed out that
the boundary layer measurements conducted at a later date at the National Bureau
of Standards supported the ideas of Tollmien and Prandtl. Dreyden also lamented
that there is no known procedure, experimental or theoretical, that can be used to
separate the random processes from the nonrandom ones.
Liepmann (1952), citing measurements in free-shear turbulent ows, in ow be-
tween rotating cylinders, and in the far-wake of a cylinder, emphasized the importance
of the presence of a secondary, large-scale structure superimposed upon the primary
turbulent shear ow. Townsend (1956) thoroughly exploited this concept in the rst
edition of his famed monograph on the structure of turbulent shear ows. He rec-
ognized the quasi-deterministic nature of large eddies and inferred their shapes from
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40 COHERENT STRUCTURES
the long-time-averaged spatial-correlation tensor measured in a Eulerian frame.
Townsends approach suffers from several shortcomings, including the lack of a
unique relationship between the correlation tensor and the unsteady ow that pro-
duces it.
In a later article, Liepmann (1962) once again underscored the splitting of seem-
ingly random uctuations into large-scale, deterministic structures and ne-grained
turbulence. Liepmann asserted the importance of large-scale structures in many tech-
nological problems in aerodynamic sound, combustion, and so forth. Liepmann
(1979) was perhaps the rst to suggest that the existence of deterministic eddies in
turbulent ows can be exploited for control purposes via direct interference with
these large structures.
The modern view of coherent structures resulted from ow visualization stud-
ies of low-Reynolds-number boundary layers conducted rst at the University of
Maryland and then at Stanford University during the late 1950s and 1960s. The new
doctrine did not pick up steam, however, until the milestone discovery of Brown and
Roshko (1971, 1974) of organized motion in a mixing layer at Reynolds numbers far
exceeding transitional ones. The large spanwise vortices, prominent in visual images
of the shear layer, were totally missed in the correlation studies of Townsend and
others.
4.1.5 The Latest Tools
Finally, dynamical systems and wavelets are the modern (i.e., the 1990s and be-
yond, at least for now) tools to tackle the last conundrum. A turbulent ow is a com-
plex, nonlinear dynamical system that has an innite number of degrees of freedom.
The issue here is the possibility of representing such a system with a reasonable
number of degrees of freedom. A Fourier decomposition would not do because it
requires a very large number of components.
Mechanical systems with three or more degrees of freedom are capable of chaotic
behavior exemplied by a strange attractor in phase space. Such systems are complex,
aperiodic, and random and display extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, but they
are nevertheless still deterministic. The book by Holmes et al. (1996) provides an
excellent introduction to the dynamical system approach to tackle the turbulence
problem.
Under rather severe restrictions, chaos theory allows the representation of tur-
bulence as a low-dimensional dynamical system. The ow is modeled as coherent
structures plus a parameterized turbulent background. The proper orthogonal de-
composition, or KarhunenLo` eve decomposition, has been of great use because it is
capable of representing the ow with a minimum number of modes. Such a repre-
sentation is useful on two fronts:
1. It provides an inexpensive
4
surrogate to the turbulent ow and in the process
sheds light on its basic physics.
2. Chaos control concepts can be utilized to achieve effective manipulation with
minimum energy expenditure once the ow is successfully represented as a
dynamical system with a reasonably small number of degrees of freedom. We
will return to the latter front in Chapter 14.
4
As compared with DNS.
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
4.1 THE CHANGING PARADIGMS OF TURBULENCE 41
The dynamical system approach thus far has been successful for ows near
transition or near a solid wall, in which cases the associated low Reynolds num-
ber implies that a relatively small number of degrees of freedom are excited and
that a large fraction of the energy is in the ordered, deterministic component of the
ow. More and more degrees of freedom are excited as the ow moves farther from
transition or away from a wall. In these cases, the structure of the strange attractor
becomes so complex as to negate the dynamical system approach advantages over
the classical statistical description.
The second modern tool is wavelets, which was introduced a little more than a
decade ago. Wavelet transform is used in many elds, including signal processing,
data compression, image coding, and numerical analysis (Wickerhauser 1994). The
technique is based on group theory and square integrable representation in terms of
basis functions, called wavelets, that are localized in both physical and wave-number
spaces. Farges (1992) review article provides a good introduction to the eld and
particularly its application to turbulence. The more recent paper by Vasilyev, Yuen,
and Paolucci (1997) offers a gentle introduction to the use of wavelets for numerically
solving complex, multiscale partial differential equations.
Wavelets allow the unfolding of a oweld into both space and scale and pos-
sibly even direction. Wavelets are localized analyzing functions that are dilated or
contracted before convolving with the signal under consideration to achieve scale
decomposition. Wavelet analysis can be viewed as a multilevel or multiresolution
representation of a function, each level of resolution consisting of basis functions
that have the same scale but are located at different positions. In contrast to Fourier
transform, wavelet transform is a local one, and the behavior of the signal at innity
plays no role in the analysis. Continuous wavelet transforms offer redundant unfold-
ing in terms of space and scale and are thus suited for tracking coherent motions and
their contributions to the energy spectrum. Discrete wavelet transforms, on the other
hand, allow orthonormal projection on a minimal number of independent modes
and may thus be used to model the ow dynamics.
Basis functions such as Mexican-hat wavelets or Daubechies scaling functions
can be used to decompose a velocity eld into eddies. Because coherent structures
are always of limited spatial extent, wavelet decomposition seems to be a better
representation of them than, say, Fourier representation. Fourier modes in the form
of (space-lling) trigonometric functions stretch off to innity and are thus suited
for decomposing a velocity eld into waves of different, independent wavelengths.
On the other hand, a limited-extent eddy is ideally represented by modes that act in
groups as the wave number increases. Wavelets offer complete representation at least
for homogeneous turbulence.
5
For inhomogeneous ows, a complete representation
using wavelets is not as readily achieved, and some difculties remain to be resolved.
6
Nevertheless, the technique offers some potential advantages from the point of view
of controlling turbulent ows. Specically, wavelet transforms may be used, for
example, as an efcient, unbiased strategy for real-time identication of coherent
structures from an instantaneous velocity signal. This step is of course at the heart
of effective reactive control.
5
As do a variety of conventional techniques with varying degrees of computational efciency and accuracy.
6
Those difculties in fact are being resolved as we go to the press (Samuel Paolucci, private commu-
nication).
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
42 COHERENT STRUCTURES
4.2 What Is a Coherent Structure?
The statistical view that turbulence is essentially a stochastic phenomenon having a
randomly uctuating velocity eld superimposed on a well-dened mean has been
changed in the last few decades by the realization that the transport properties of all
turbulent shear ows are dominated by quasi-periodic, large-scale vortex motions
(Laufer 1975; Townsend 1976; Cantwell 1981; Fiedler 1988). Despite the extensive
research work in this area, no generally accepted denition of what is meant by co-
herent motion has emerged. In physics, coherence stands for a well-dened phase
relationship. We provide here two rather different views, the rst is general and the
second is more restrictive. According to Robinson (1991), a coherent motion is
dened as a three-dimensional region of the ow over which at least one fundamen-
tal ow variable (velocity component, density, temperature, etc.) exhibits signicant
correlation with itself or with another variable over a range of space and/or time that
is signicantly larger than the smallest local scales of the ow. The rather restrictive
denition is given by Hussain (1986): A coherent structure is a connected turbulent
uid mass with instantaneously phase-correlated vorticity over its spatial extent. In
other words, underlying the random, three-dimensional vorticity that characterizes
turbulence, there is a component of large-scale vorticity that is instantaneously co-
herent over the spatial extent of an organized structure. The apparent randomness of
the oweld is, for the most part, due to the randomsize and strength of the different
type of organized structures comprising that eld. Several other denitions are cat-
alogued by Delville et al. (1998). The same authors also provide a cook-book-style
approach to coherent structure identication using a variety of classical and modern
strategies.
The challenge is to identify a coherent structure well hidden in a sea of random
background when such a structure is present either in a visual impression of the ow
or in an instantaneous velocity, temperature, or pressure signal. This is of course not
a trivial task, and the ancient Hindu fable
7
about the six blind men, each trying from
his own limited perspective to identify how an elephant looks, immediately comes to
mind. Complicating the issue is that coherent structures change fromone type of ow
to another and even in the same type of ow as initial and boundary conditions vary.
The largest eddies are of the same scale as that of the ow and consequently cannot
be universal. Identifying a coherent structure based on certain dynamical properties
is more likely to succeed but is quite involved. On the other hand, a kinematic
detector based on its creators perception of the dynamic behavior of the organized
motion is simpler to employ but runs the risk of detecting the presence of nonexistent
objects (Lumley 1981). Beneting fromhindsight, the fewow-visualization pictures
depicted in the next two sections may help in exploring the nature of the whole
beast.
4.3 Free-Shear Flows
As indicated above, there is no universal coherent structure. Organized motions in
wakes are different from those in boundary layers. In a jet issuing from a nozzle with
7
Recited at the beginning of this chapter with all six blind men. This ancient story is often misquoted in
the recent literature with three, four, or ve of the lads.
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4.3 FREE-SHEAR FLOWS 43
a thin, laminar boundary layer on its inner surface, coherent structures are easily
observed, whereas a jet issuing from a nozzle with a thick, turbulent boundary layer
has organized structures that are nearly undetectable. The proportion of organized
turbulence decreases, in general, with the level of disturbances in the incoming ow.
In general again, coherent structures in free-shear ows are easier to detect and
characterize than those in wall-bounded ows. According to Liu (1988), for free-
shear turbulent ows it is not necessary to conjecture that the local ne-grained
turbulence rearranges itself to give bursts of white noise in order to maintain the
hydrodynamically unstable waves as in the case of wall-bounded ows. The exis-
tence of large-scale, coherent motions in mixing layers, jets, and wakes is instead a
manifestation of the dynamic instability associated with the local inectional mean-
velocity proles. As a result, free-shear ows have pronounced organized motions
and wavelike structures (Fiedler 1988, 1998).
In a mixing layer, the dominant structures are rollerlike vortices as large as the
shear layer itself (Brown and Roshko 1971, 1974; Roshko 1976). The growth of
the mixing layer results from the amalgamation of neighboring large eddies rather
than fromtheir individual growth (Winant and Browand 1974). The large transverse
eddies in a mixing layer are strung together by a spaghetti-like net of smaller-scale,
streamwise, counterrotating vortices. If the mixing layer develops from undisturbed
conditions (i.e., thin, laminar boundary layers on the splitter plate), the rollerlike
vortices are energetic and only relatively slowly become three-dimensional and less
organized. If, on the other hand, the splitter plate has thick, turbulent boundary
layers, the proportion of organized motion is considerably less dominant.
The spark-shadowgraph photograph in Figure 4.2 shows the mixing of a fast-
moving stream of helium (top) and a slower stream of nitrogen (bottom), both mov-
ing from left to right. The two streams have the same mean momentum per unit
cross-sectional area,
1
U
2
1
=
2
U
2
2
, and originate from a splitter plate with laminar
boundary layers. The rollerlike vortices convect at nearly constant speed equal to
the average
1
2
(U
1
+U
2
). Increasing the Reynolds number produces more small-scale
structures without signicantly altering the large eddies.
The spanwise vortices remain as a permanent dominant feature even at high
Reynolds numbers. Brown and Roshkos (1971, 1974) experiment is important be-
cause it was the rst to show a signicant proportion of organized turbulence even
at Reynolds numbers far from transitional. Moreover, a much closer tie between
Figure 4.2: High-Reynolds-number mixing layer. The helium stream on top moves at a velocity of 10 m/s,
and the nitrogen stream on the bottom moves at a speed of 3.78 m/s. The whole test section is pressurized
to P = 8 atm, giving a Reynolds number based on downstream distance of the order of 10
6
[after Brown
and Roshko 1974].
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44 COHERENT STRUCTURES
Figure 4.3: Transitional subsonic air jet [after Bradshaw, Ferris, and Johnson 1964].
stability and turbulence has been established: The essentially two-dimensional vor-
tices in the fully turbulent ow are clearly related to the general instability modes of
a simple vortex sheet.
The organized structures in jets are not as dominant as those in mixing layers
having similar levels of disturbances in the incoming ow. The schlieren photograph
in Figure 4.3 depicts a subsonic air jet issuing at a speed of 12 m/s from a 5-cm-
diameter nozzle on the left, giving a Reynolds number of Re 410
4
. The laminar
jet undergoes transition shortly after exiting and eventually becomes turbulent. The
initial instabilities in the form of vortex rings appear to originate at the interface of
the jet and the surrounding potential ow and quickly become three-dimensional as
longitudinal striations develop.
In contrast to mixing layers, the spanwise vortices shed in the wake of bluff
bodies do not pair. The basic mechanism for wake growth is entrainment. The two
photographs in Figure 4.4 contrast the low-Reynolds-number turbulent wake (Re =
4300) behind a at plate at a 45
to the
current. Although the Reynolds number for the tank ship at Re 10
8
is more than
four orders of magnitude higher, the two wakes are remarkably similar.
4.4 Wall-Bounded Flows
We nowturn our attention to the more enigmatic boundary layers and channel ows.
In a wall-bounded ow, a multiplicity of coherent structures have been identied
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
4.4 WALL-BOUNDED FLOWS 45
Figure 4.4: Turbulent wakes behind bluff bodies. (a) Inclined at plate in water tunnel; from Cantwell
(1981). (b) Grounded tanker [NASAphotograph courtesy of O.M. Grifn, Naval Research Laboratory].
mostly through ow visualization experiments, although some important early dis-
coveries have been made using correlation measurements (e.g., Townsend 1961,
1970; Bakewell and Lumley 1967). Although the literature on this topic is vast, no
research-community-wide consensus has been reachedparticularly on the issues of
the origin of, and interaction between, the different structures, regeneration mech-
anisms, and Reynolds number effects. What follow are somewhat biased remarks
addressing these issues. At times diverse viewpoints will be presented, but for the
most part particular scenarios, which in my opinion are most likely to be true, will
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
46 COHERENT STRUCTURES
be emphasized. The interested reader is referred to the book edited by Panton (1997a),
which emphasizes the self-sustaining mechanisms of wall turbulence, and the large
number of review articles available (e.g., Kovasznay 1970; Laufer 1975; Willmarth
1975a,b; Saffman 1978; Cantwell 1981; Fiedler 1986, 1988; Blackwelder 1988,
1998; Robinson 1991; Delville et al. 1998). The paper by Robinson (1991) in partic-
ular summarizes many of the different, sometimes contradictory, conceptual models
offered thus far by different research groups. Those models are aimed ultimately at
explaining how the turbulence maintains itself and range from the speculative to the
rigorous, but not one, unfortunately, is self-contained and complete. Furthermore,
the structure research dwells largely on the kinematics of organized motion, and little
attention is given to the dynamics of the regeneration process.
4.4.1 Overview
With few exceptions, most of the available structural information on wall-
bounded ows come from rather low-Reynolds-number experiments and numerical
simulations. Organized structures appear to be similar in all wall-bounded ows
only in the inner layer. The outer region of a boundary layer is by necessity different
from the core region of a pipe or channel ow. An overall view, whose source of
information is predominately low-Reynolds-number experiments, is presented here.
As will become clear throughout the discussion here and in the following chapter, the
picture that emerges at high Reynolds numbers is quite different, and structural in-
formation gleaned from low-Reynolds-number physical and numerical experiments
may not be very relevant to the more practically important high-Reynolds-number
ows.
In boundary layers, the turbulence production process is dominated by three kinds
of quasi-periodic eddies: the large outer structures, the intermediate Falco eddies, and
the near-wall eddies. Examples of these coherent structures visualized in laboratory-
scale boundary layers are depicted in Figures 4.54.7. Laser sheet illumination is
used in all three photographs. The large eddies forming on a at plate towed in
a water channel are seen in the side view in Figure 4.5. The ow (relative to the
plate) is from left to right. The articially tripped boundary layer has a momentum-
thickness Reynolds number at the observation station of Re
/ = 725 and
is marked with uorescent dye. The smoke-lled boundary layer shown in the top
view in Figure 4.6 depicts the characteristic pockets believed to be induced by the
motion of Falco eddies over the wall. In this case, the experiments are conducted in
a wind tunnel at a Reynolds number of Re
= 725. Flat
plate towed in a water tank. Large eddies are visualized using a sheet of laser and uorescent
dye [after Gad-el-Hak, Blackwelder, and Riley 1984].
Figure 4.6: Top viewof a low-Reynolds-number turbulent boundary layer, Re
=
742. Wind tunnel experiment. Pockets, believed to be the ngerprints of typical
eddies, are visualized using dense smoke illuminated with a sheet of laser [after
Falco 1980].
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48 COHERENT STRUCTURES
Figure 4.7: Top view of a low-Reynolds-number turbulent boundary layer Re
>5000) the very existence of the large eddy as an isolated coherent structure
has been questioned by Head and Bandyopadhyay (1981).
The Falco eddies are also highly coherent and three-dimensional. Falco (1974,
1977) named them typical eddies because they appear in wakes, jets, Emmons spots,
grid-generated turbulence, and boundary layers in zero, favorable, and adverse pres-
sure gradients. They have an intermediate scale of about 100 wall units. (Viscous
forces dominate over inertia in the wall region. The characteristic scales there are
obtained from the magnitude of the mean vorticity in the region and its viscous dif-
fusion away from the wall. Thus, the viscous time-scale, t
U
y
1
(4.1)
and the viscous length scale,
U
y
w
(4.2)
where is the kinematic viscosity. The wall-velocity scale (so-called friction velocity,
u
U
y
w
=
(4.3)
where
w
is the shear stress at the wall, and is the uid density. A wall unit implies
scaling with the viscous scales, and the usual ()
+
notation is used; for example,
y
+
= y/
= y u
/.)
The Falco eddies appear to be an important link between the large structures
and the near-wall events. In the plan view shown in Figure 4.6, smoke lls the
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
50 COHERENT STRUCTURES
near-wall region of a boundary layer, and the roughly circular regions devoid of
marked uid are called pockets. These undulations are very similar to the so-called
folds observed by Perry, Lim, and Teh (1981). Falco (1980) asserted that the pock-
ets are the footprints of some outer structures that induce uid toward the wall.
Robinson, Kline, and Spalart (1989) analyzed the database generated from the di-
rect numerical simulations of Spalart (1986, 1988). They concurred that the pock-
ets are the signature of local wallward motions, evidenced by spanwise divergence
of streamlines, above regions of high wall pressure. Low-pressure regions, on the
other hand, occur along lines of converging streamlines associated with outward
motion. These motions are, respectively, the sweep and ejection events depicted in
Figure 4.9.
The third kind of eddies exist in the wall region (0 y
+
100), where the
Reynolds stress is produced in an intermittent fashion. Half of the total production
of turbulence kinetic energy (uv U/y) takes place near the wall in the rst 5% of
the boundary layer at typical laboratory Reynolds numbers (smaller fraction of the
Figure 4.9: Proposed sequence of the bursting process. The arrows indicate the sequen-
tial events, and the ? indicates relationships with less supporting evidence [adapted
from Blackwelder 1998].
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
4.4 WALL-BOUNDED FLOWS 51
boundary layer thickness at higher Reynolds numbers), and the dominant sequence
of intense organized motions there are collectively termed the bursting phenomenon.
This dynamically signicant process, identied during the 1960s by researchers at
Stanford University (Kline and Runstadler 1959; Runstadler, Kline, and Reynolds
1963; Kline et al. 1967; Kim, Kline, and Reynolds 1971; Offen and Kline 1974,
1975), was reviewed by Willmarth (1975a) and Blackwelder (1978) and most recently
by Blackwelder (1998).
To focus the discussion on the bursting process and its possible relationships to
other organized motions within the boundary layer, we refer to the schematic in
Figure 4.9, adapted from Blackwelder (1998). Qualitatively, the process, according
to at least one school of thought, begins with elongated, counterrotating, streamwise
vortices having diameters of approximately 40 wall units or 40/u
. The estimate
for the diameter of the vortex is obtained from the conditionally averaged spanwise
velocity proles reported by Blackwelder and Eckelmann (1979). There is a distinc-
tion, however, between vorticity distribution and a vortex (Saffman and Baker 1979;
Robinson et al. 1989; Robinson 1991), and the visualization results of Smith and
Schwartz (1983) may indicate a much smaller diameter. In any case, with reference
to Figure 4.10, the counterrotating vortices exist in a strong shear and induce low-
and high-speed regions between them. Those low-speed streaks were rst visual-
ized by Francis Hama at the University of Maryland (see Corrsin 1957), although
Hamas contribution is frequently overlooked in favor of the subsequent and more
thorough studies conducted at Stanford University and cited above. The vortices
and the accompanying eddy structures occur randomly in space and time. How-
ever, their appearance is sufciently regular that an average spanwise wavelength
Figure 4.10: Model of near-wall structure in turbulent wall-bounded ows [after
Blackwelder 1978].
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
52 COHERENT STRUCTURES
of approximately 80 to 100/u
= O[1000], with
wall variables and tend to promote and enhance the inectional velocity proles by
increasing the instantaneous shear, leading to a more rapidly growing instability. The
relation between the pockets and the sweep events is not clear, but it seems that the
former forms the highly irregular interface between the latter and the wall-region
uid. More recently, Klewicki, Murray, and Falco (1994) conducted a four-wire hot-
wire probe measurement in a low-Reynolds-number canonical boundary layer to
8
According to Swearingen and Blackwelder (1984), inectional u(z) proles are just as likely to be found
in the near-wall region and can also be the cause of the subsequent bursting events. See Figure 4.9.
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
4.4 WALL-BOUNDED FLOWS 53
clarify the roles of velocityspanwise vorticity eld interactions regarding the near-
wall turbulent stress production and transport.
Other signicant experiments were conducted by Tiederman and his students
(Donohue, Tiederman, and Reischman 1972; Reischman and Tiederman 1975;
Oldaker and Tiederman 1977; Tiederman, Luchik, and Bogard 1985), Smith and
his colleagues (Smith and Metzler 1982, 1983; Smith and Schwartz 1983), and the
present author and his collaborators. The rst group conducted extensive studies of
the near-wall region, particularly the viscous sublayer, of channels with Newtonian
as well as drag-reducing non-Newtonian uids. Smiths group, using a unique two-
camera, high-speed video system, was the rst to indicate a symbiotic relationship
between the occurrence of low-speed streaks and the formation of vortex loops in the
near-wall region. Gad-el-Hak and Hussain (1986) and Gad-el-Hak and Blackwelder
(1987a) have introduced methods by which the bursting events and large-eddy struc-
tures are articially generated in a boundary layer. Their experiments greatly facilitate
the study of the uniquely controlled simulated coherent structures via phase-locked
measurements.
4.4.2 Open Issues
There are at least four unresolved issues regarding coherent structures in wall-
bounded ows, not all of which are necessarily independent: How does a particu-
lar structure originate? How do different structures, especially the ones having dis-
parate scales, interact? How does the turbulence continue to regenerate itself? Does
the Reynolds number affect the different structures in any profound way? The pri-
mary difculty in trying to answer any of these queries stems from the existence of
two scales in the ow that become rather disparate at large Reynolds numbers. The
closely related issues of origin, innerouter interaction, and regeneration will be ad-
dressed in the following three subsubsections. Reynolds number effects are deferred
to Chapter 5.
Origin of Different Structures
Faced with the myriad of coherent structures existing in the boundary layer, a
legitimate question is, Where do they all come from and which one is dynamically
signicant? Sreenivasan (1988) offers a glimpse of the difculties associated with
trying to answer this question. The structural description of a turbulent boundary
layer may not be that complicated, however, and some of the observed structures may
simply be a manifestation of the different aspects of a more basic coherent structure.
For example, some researchers argue that the observed near-wall streamwise vortices
and large eddies are, respectively, the legs and heads of the omnipresent hairpin
vortices (Head and Bandyopadhyay 1981). Nevertheless, that still leaves us with a
minimum number of building blocks that must be dealt with.
If the large eddies are assumed to be dynamically signicant, then how are they
recreated? It is easy to argue that the conventional laminar-to-turbulence transition
cannot be responsible because the same large eddies appear even in heavily tripped
boundary layers in which the usual transition routes are bypassed. Wall events cannot
be responsible for creating large eddies because of their extremely small relative scale
at high Reynolds number. Furthermore, no hierarchical amalgamation of scales has
been observed to justify such proposition.
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
54 COHERENT STRUCTURES
If, alternatively, wall events are assumed to dominate, then where do the stream-
wise vortices or the low-speed streaks come from, and what mechanism sustains
the bursting cycle? Mechanisms that assume local instability cannot be valid at large
Reynolds numbers for which the wall layer is, say, 0.1% of the boundary layer
thickness,
9
and it is difcult to conceive that 99.9% of the boundary layer has no
active role in the generation and maintenance of turbulence. On the other hand,
assuming the bursting events are triggered by the large eddies brings us back to the
original question of where the latter come from.
The preceding difculties explain the lack of a self-consistent model of the tur-
bulent boundary layer despite the enormous effort expended to establish such a
model. None of the existing models are complete in the sense that none accounts
for each aspect of the ow in relation to every other aspect. The question marks
in Figure 4.9 are just the tip of the iceberg. Developing a complete, self-consistent
model is more than an academic exercise, for a proper conceptual model of the
ow gives researchers the necessary tools to compute high-Reynolds-number practi-
cal ows using the Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes equations and to devise novel
ow-control strategies as well as to extend known laboratory-scale control devices
to eld conditions.
InnerOuter Interaction
There is no doubt that signicant interactions between the inner and outer lay-
ers take place. On energy grounds alone, it is known that in the outer layer the
dissipation is larger than the turbulence kinetic energy production (Townsend 1976).
It is therefore necessary for energy to be transported from the inner layer to the
outer layer simply to sustain the latter. How that is accomplished and whether co-
herent structures are the only vehicle to transport energy is not clear, but two distinct
schools of thought have emerged. In the rst, the large-scale structures dominate and
provide the strong buffeting necessary to maintain the low-Reynolds-number turbu-
lence in the viscous region (y
+
30). In the second view, rare, intense wall events
are assigned the active role and, through outward turbulence diffusion, provide the
necessary energy supply to maintain the outer region. As mentioned in the previous
subsubsection, both views have some loose ends.
On the basis of a large number of spacetime, two-point correlation measure-
ments of u and v, Kovasznay, Kibens, and Blackwelder (1970) suggested that the
outer region of a turbulent boundary layer is dominated by large eddies. The inter-
face between the turbulent ow and the irrotational uid outside the boundary layer
is highly corrugated with a root-mean-square slope in the xy plane of roughly 0.5.
The three-dimensional bulges are elongated in the streamwise direction with an aspect
ratio of approximately 2:1 and have a characteristic dimension in the wall-normal
direction of between 0.5 and . They appear quasi-periodically and are roughly sim-
ilar to each other. Kovasznay et al. (1970) allowed that the large eddies are passive in
the sense that the wall events and not these eddies are responsible for producing the
Reynolds stress. Kovasznay (1970) advanced the hypothesis that wall bursting starts
a chain reaction of some sort at all intermediate scales culminating into a sequence
of amalgamations that eventually lead to the large structures. As mentioned earlier,
9
This is the near-wall region extending fromthe surface to y
+
= 30 as a percentage of the boundary-layer
thickness when the Reynolds number is Re
10
5
.
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
4.4 WALL-BOUNDED FLOWS 55
Figure 4.11: Sketch of large-eddy structures as a
collection of smaller-scale hairpin vortices. From
Head and Bandyopadhyay (1981). (a) Typical
low-Reynolds-number boundary layer. (b) Typical
high-Reynolds-number ow.
such hierarchical amalgamation of scales
has not been directly observed in the lab-
oratory.
Head and Bandyopadhyay (1981),
on the other hand, suggested that the
very existence of the large eddies at
high Reynolds numbers is in doubt.
Their combined ow visualization and
hot-wire probe experiments are unique
in that an unusually large range of
Reynolds number was investigated,
Re
<1000) but
a large number of them at high Reynolds numbers (say, Re
to the plane
of the ow over a major part of the layer thickness. In Head and Bandyopadhyays
(1981) view, the entire turbulent boundary layer consists very largely of vortex loops
that become increasingly elongated as the Reynolds number increases. The so-called
large eddies, on the other hand, do not appear to exhibit any particular coherent
motion beyond a relatively slow overturning or toppling due to shear.
Corroborative evidence for the hairpin angle of inclination of 45
comes from
the simultaneous, multiple-point hot-wire measurements of Alving et al. (1990) in a
canonical turbulent boundary layer and a boundary layer recovering from the effects
of strong convex curvature. Their cross-correlation results are consistent with the
observation of large-scale structures spanning the entire shear layer and inclined at
angles in the range of 35
45
to the ow direction.
Black (1966, 1968) conducted a more rigorous analytical work to show the fun-
damental role of hairpin vortices in the dynamics of wall-bounded ows. His basic
premise is that the primary role of the random turbulent motion is not to transfer
mean momentumdirectly but rather to excite strong, three-dimensional instability of
the sublayer, which is a powerhouse of vorticity. In Blacks model, trains of discrete
horseshoes are generated by repetitive, localized, nonlinear instabilities within the vis-
cous sublayer. The vortical structures are shed and outwardly migrate from the near-
wall region in a characteristic, quasi-frozen spatial array. The horseshoes inviscidly
induce an outow of low-speed uid from within the vortex loops, creating motions
that would be seen by a stationary probe as sharp, intermittent spikes of Reynolds
stress. Because of the continuous creation of new vortex loops that replace older
elements, the lifetime of the vortical array is much longer than that for its individual
members. According to Black (1968), such organized structures are responsible for
the efcient mass and momentum transfer within a turbulent boundary layer.
Sreenivasan (1988) offers a similar model to that of Black (1968). The essential
structures of the boundary layer, including the hairpin vortices, result from the insta-
bility of a caricature ow in which all the mean-ow vorticity has been concentrated
in a single fat sheet.
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
4.4 WALL-BOUNDED FLOWS 57
As a parting remark in this subsection, it might be instructive to recall that
hairpin vortices play an important role also in the laminar-to-turbulence transition
of boundary-layer ows. Essentially, these hairpins are the result of the nonlinear
tertiary instability of the three-dimensional peak and valley pattern, which itself
is the secondary instability of the primary TollmienSchlichting waves (Klebanoff,
Tidstrom, and Sargent 1962).
Cambridge Books Online Cambridge University Press, 2009
CHAPTER FIVE
Reynolds Number Effects
What is reasonable is real; that which is real is reasonable.
(Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 17701831)
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you dont know.
(Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 18721970)
PROLOGUE
This chapter deals with Reynolds number effects in turbulent shear ows with par-
ticular emphasis on the canonical zero-pressure-gradient boundary layer and two-
dimensional channel-ow problems. The Reynolds numbers encountered in many
practical situations are typically several orders of magnitude higher than those stud-
ied computationally or even experimentally. High-Reynolds-number research facil-
ities are expensive to build and operate, and the few that exist are heavily sched-
uled with mostly developmental work. For wind tunnels, additional complications
due to compressibility effects are introduced at high speeds. Likewise, full compu-
tational simulation of high-Reynolds-number ows is beyond the reach of current
capabilities. Understanding turbulence and modeling will therefore continue to play
vital roles in the computation of high-Reynolds-number practical ows using the
Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes equations. Because the existing knowledge base,
accumulated mostly through physical as well as numerical experiments, is skewed
toward the low Reynolds numbers, the key question in such high-Reynolds-number
modeling as well as in devising novel owcontrol strategies is, What are the Reynolds
number effects on the mean and statistical turbulence quantities and on the organized
motions? Understanding the Reynolds number effects is important for ow control
on two counts:
1. A passive or active control device developed in a low-Reynolds-number
facility may perform quite differently at high Re.
2. For reactive control, coherent structures are targeted. Those organized mo-
tions change scale and even character as the Reynolds number varies.
58
5.1 THE LAST CONUNDRUM 59
5.1 The Last Conundrum
Once more, turbulence is the last great unsolved problem of classical physics. Two
of the greatest achievements of turbulence research are the Kolmogorov universal
equilibrium theory and the universal logarithmic law of the wall. In fact, there is a
direct analogy between the two high-Reynolds-number asymptotes, one being con-
cerned with a cascade of energy and an inertial subrange in the frequency domain
and the other with a hierarchy of eddies and an inertial sublayer in the physical
space. The overall ow dynamics in the energy spectrum subrange and the wall-
bounded owsublayer is independent of viscosity. Dimensional reasoning, similarity,
and asymptotic analysis are the tools of choice to derive analytical expressions for
certain statistical ow quantities without actually solving the intractable governing
equations.
One of the fundamental tenets of boundary-layer research is the idea that any sta-
tistical turbulence quantity (mean, rms, Reynolds stress, etc.) measured at different
facilities and at different Reynolds numbers will collapse to a single universal pro-
le when nondimensionalized using the proper length and velocity scales (different
scales are used near the wall and away from it). This is termed self-similarity or self-
preservation and allows convenient extrapolation from the low-Reynolds-number
laboratory experiments to the much higher Reynolds number situations encountered
in typical eld applications. The universal logarithmic prole mentioned above de-
scribes the mean streamwise velocity in the overlap region between the inner and
outer layers of any wall-bounded ow and is the best-known result of the stated
classical idea.
The log-law has been derived independently by Ludwig Prandtl and G.I. Taylor
using mixing length arguments, by Theodore von K arm an using dimensional rea-
soning, and by Clark B. Millikan using asymptotic analysis. Those names belong
of course to the revered giants of our eld. Questioning the fundamental tenet or
its derivatives is, therefore, tantamount to heresy. But the questions and doubts
linger as evidenced from the work of Simpson (1970), Malkus (1979), Barenblatt
(1979), Long and Chen (1981), Wei and Willmarth (1989), George, Castillo, and
Knecht (1992), Bradshaw (1994), Sreenivasan (see the doctoral thesis by Kailasnath
1993), and Smits (see the doctoral thesis by Smith 1994), among others, who at
different times challenged various aspects of this law. And those are only the ones
who, with varying degrees of difculty, could get their work published. There is
strong suspicion, among the iconoclasts at least, that Reynolds number effects persist
indenitely for both mean velocity and, more pronouncedly, higher-order statistics,
and hence that true self-preservation is never achieved in a growing boundary layer.
In fairness to the high priests, their logarithmic law was always intended to be a
very high-Reynolds-number asymptote. These issues are discussed in greater detail
in the survey by Gad-el-Hak and Bandyopadhyay (1994). In this chapter, we give the
highlights.
If in fact the log-law is fallible, the implications are far-reaching (Gad-el-Hak
1997). Resolution of the full equations, via direct numerical simulations, at all but
the most modest values of Reynolds number is beyond the reach of current or near-
future computer capabilities. Modeling will, therefore, continue to play a vital role
in the computations of practical ows using the Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes
equations. Flow modelers, in attempting to provide concrete information for the
60 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
designers of, say, ships, submarines, and aircraft, heavily rely on similarity principles
in order to model the turbulence quantities and circumvent the well-known closure
problem. Because practically all turbulence models are calibrated to reproduce the
law of the wall in simple ows, failure of this universal relation virtually guarantees
that Reynolds-averaged turbulence models will fail too. Finally, developers of ow-
control devices to reduce drag, enhance lift, and so forth, often have to extrapolate the
widely available low-speed (or more precisely low-Reynolds-number) results to high-
speed ows of practical interest for which no data are available. Such extrapolation
is not possible if the difcult-to-quantify Reynolds number effects persist indenitely.
For both scientists and engineers the message is essentially back to the drawing board!
In a community of conformists, the heretics never have it easy, of course. The
peer reviewsystem, although essential for weeding out the charlatans, the misguided,
and the fools, is somewhat biased against unorthodox ideas. Nevertheless, the latest
two theses to question the infallibility of the log-law are contained in the articles
by Barenblatt, Chorin, and Prostokishin (1997) and George and Castillo (1997).
The two teams tackle the same problem quite differently and independently. Both
papers offer concrete alternatives to the Reynolds-number-independent law of the
wall. Barenblatt et al. (1997) use scaling laws that invoke a zero-viscosity asymptote,
whereas George and Castillo introduce newtools they termthe asymptotic invariance
and near asymptotic principles that result in a new law of the wall with explicit
Reynolds number dependence. George and Castillos new law is deduced from
rst principles, ts existing mean-velocity data better, and is extendible to higher-
order statistics.
When the log-law and its consequences are challenged, the usual immediate re-
action is to doubt the credentials of the blasphemer. Something is wrong with his or
her model, experiment, numerical scheme, or with an endless list of potential pitfalls.
These are all genuine concerns that turn out to be valid most of the time, but para-
noiacs have enemies too! There is also the persistent, albeit misguided, argument that
the log-law ts the data well enough for engineering applications. If it isnt broke,
dont x it! This pragmatism is of course simultaneously the curse and the blessing of
science conducted by engineers. Moreover, although the errors involved in attempting
to t the log-law to existing mean-velocity data are quite tolerable considering our
inability to accurately measure the friction velocity (the velocity scale necessary to
collapse the plots), the corresponding errors for higher-order statistics are egregious.
The entire enterprise is not unlike the sixteenth-century debate over the Ptolemaic
view of the heavens and the Copernican model seeking to replace it. The former the-
ory served navigators well for over 1400 years. The Copernican theory made only
small corrections but radically changed humankinds view of their universe. And it
was a masterpiece in terms of its economy of postulates and assumptions, which is a
necessary condition for theoretical elegance.
In judging the alternatives to the log-law, one should of course ask the usual
barrage of questions that only a vibrant collection of skeptical neurons could muster.
Is the theory simple, elegant, and self-consistent? Does the model provide a better t to
the data? Does it explain previous contradictions? Is the theory based on a minimum
number of assumptions? Is it extendable to more complex situations? Are the results
asymptotically correct? Is the logic sound? Is the mathematics free of errors? A tting
end to this editorializing is to quote my (elder) academic sibling John Lumley: . . . A
theory that does all that in an effortless way is often called elegant. Tomorrow, it may
5.2 THE ISSUES 61
be wrong. Even so, it deserves to be regarded as one of the better things of which
man is capable (Lumley 1992).
5.2 The Issues
5.2.1 Field versus Laboratory Flows
It is difcult to overstate the technological importance of the turbulent wall-
bounded ow. Vast amounts of energy are spent in overcoming the turbulence
skin-friction drag in pipelines and on air, water, and land vehicles. For blunt
bodies (e.g., trucks and trains), the pressure drag resulting from boundary layer
separation can be several orders of magnitude higher than the skin friction, and
even more energy is wasted. Heat transfer and mixing processes crucially depend
on the turbulence transport for their efcient attainment. The Reynolds numbers
encountered in many practical situations are typically several orders of magnitude
higher than those studied computationally or even experimentally (Figure 5.1).
Yet, our knowledge of high-Reynolds-number ows is very limited, and a complete
understanding is yet to emerge. The existing knowledge base, accumulated mostly
through physical as well as numerical experiments, is clearly skewed toward low
Reynolds numbers. For many practical applications the key question is then, What
are the Reynolds number effects on the mean and statistical turbulence quantities
and on the organized motions of turbulence? One always hopes that the ow
characteristics become invariant at sufciently high Reynolds number. That merely
shifts the question to What is high enough?
Consider the simplest possible turbulent wall-bounded ow, that over a smooth
at plate at zero incidence to a uniform, incompressible ow or its close cousin, the
two-dimensional channel ow. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that such ideal-
ized ow does not exist in practice, where three-dimensional, roughness, pressure-
gradient, curvature, wall-compliance, heat-transfer, compressibility, stratication and
other effects may be present individually or collectively, the canonical problemitself is
not well understood. Most disturbing froma practical point of vieware the unknown
effects of Reynolds number on the mean ow, the higher-order statistical quantities,
and the ow structure. The primary objective of this chapter is to review the state of
the art of Reynolds number effects in shear-ow turbulence with particular emphasis
on the canonical boundary layer and channel-ow problems.
Figure 5.1: Ranges of momentum-thickness Reynolds number for different
facilities and for eld conditions.
62 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
5.2.2 Reynolds Number
Reynolds number effects are intimately related to the concept of dynamic similar-
ity. In a given owgeometry, if Land v
o
are the length and velocity scales, respectively,
the nondimensional equation of motion for an effectively incompressible, Newtonian
uid with negligible body forces is given by
u
t
+(u )u = p +
1
Re
2
u (5.1)
where Re = v
o
L,, p is pressure, and is the constant kinematic viscosity. This
seemingly supercial nondimensionalization reveals two important properties. The
rst is the concept of dynamic similarity. No matter how L, v
o
and are varied, as
long as Re is the same in two geometrically similar ows, they have the same solu-
tion. Small-scale model testing of large-scale real-life ows is based on this property.
Secondly, for a given geometry and boundary conditions, the effect of changing L,
v
o
, or , or any combination of them, can be described uniquely by the change of Re
alone. Although, the importance of Re was recognized earlier by Stokes, it has come
to be termed Reynolds number in recognition of Osborne Reynolds (1883) telling
demonstration of its effect on the onset of turbulence. Even today, the laminar-to-
turbulence transition is one of the most dramatic Reynolds number effects, and its
rational computation continues to be a research challenge. Equation (5.1) shows that
Re represents the relative importance of viscous and inviscid forces. Because three
forces (inertial, pressure, and viscous) are in equilibrium, the balance can be described
by the ratio of any two, although it has become customary to characterize the ow
by the ratio of inertial to viscous forces.
In this chapter, only turbulent ows are considered because they are widely preva-
lent. The report by Bushnell et al. (1993) treats Reynolds number similarity and
scaling effects in laminar and transitional ows. The understanding of the effects of
Reynolds number relies on our understanding of viscous forces. For a wall-bounded
ow, this is true no matter how high the Reynolds number is. Experience shows that,
aside from rareed gas ows, there is no practical Reynolds number for which the
no-slip boundary condition, which owes its origin to viscous effects, switches off.
Because the net viscous force on an element of incompressible uid is determined
by the local gradients of vorticity, the understanding of the vorticity distribution is
the key to determining Reynolds number effects. Vorticity can be produced only at a
solid boundary and cannot be created or destroyed in the interior of a homogeneous
uid under normal conditions.
The qualitative effects of Reynolds number on the scales of turbulence are demon-
strated by the velocity-uctuations spectra for lowand high Re. The large scale is only
weakly dependent on Reynolds number (Townsend 1976). However, as Reynolds
number increases, the small scales become physically smaller (larger wave numbers),
and the diversity of intermediate scales between the large and small increases. In terms
of organized motions in a turbulent boundary layer, the effect of Reynolds number
on the omnipresent vortex loops has been demonstrated in the ow-visualization
experiments of Head and Bandyopadhyay (1981). With increasing Reynolds num-
ber, the aspect ratio of the constituent horseshoe vortices increases while the vortices
become skinnier. Thus, the vortex loops typically observed at low Reynolds num-
ber are gradually supplanted by horseshoe vortices and then hairpin vortices as Re
increases.
5.3 FLOW REGIMES 63
Figure 5.2: Distribution of viscous and turbulence shear stresses in wall-
bounded ows [after Sreenivasan 1989].
5.3 Flow Regimes
An inspection of the distribution of viscous and turbulence shear stresses in a typical
wall-bounded ow demonstrates the presence of three distinct regions. Figure 5.2,
adapted by Sreenivasan (1989) from the smooth-pipe-ow data of Nikuradse (1932)
and Laufer (1954), shows such distribution in wall units (friction velocity, u
=
(
w
,)
1,2
, used as velocity scale, and the ratio of kinematic viscosity to friction veloc-
ity used as length scale; see Section 4.4.1). Pipe (or channel) ow data are preferable
to at-plate boundary layer experiments because the Reynolds stress, a rather dif-
cult quantity to measure accurately, can be computed exactly for fully developed
channel ows from the relatively simpler measurements of mean-velocity prole and
pressure gradient. The semilog plot in the gure enhances the importance of the thin
near-wall region relative to the rest of the shear layer.
The broken line in Figure 5.2 is the time-averaged viscous stress distribution com-
puted by differentiating the mean-velocity prole. Note that this laminar owconcept
of shear may not be relevant to the time-dependent turbulent owbecause turbulence
models based on the mean velocity gradients have not been widely successful (e.g.,
Bradshaw et al. 1967). Nevertheless, it is clear from the gure that the mean viscous
stress, j(U,y), is important only near the wall. This wall layer is followed by a
region of approximately constant Reynolds stress. Finally, an outer layer
1
is charac-
terized by a diminishing turbulence shear stress, reaching zero at the centerline of the
1
Called core region in internal ows.
64 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
pipe. Unlike the second and third regimes, the extent of the rst region does not de-
pend on Reynolds number. Both the viscous region and the constant-Reynolds-stress
region are similar in all wall-bounded ows. In contrast, the outer layer is different
in internal ows and boundary layers. Proles of the mean velocity and other turbu-
lence statistics can be constructed from scaling considerations of the three distinct
regimes, as will be demonstrated in the following three subsections.
Note that the Reynolds number used as a parameter in Figure 5.2 is dened as
Re
= u
and
+
are the same, their dif-
ference in signicance and usage should be claried. The variable
+
denotes the
ratio of the outer- to inner-layer thickness and represents the degree of shrinking
of the latter with respect to the former, which changes little with Reynolds number.
The variable emphasizes the disparity of the two scales and the diversity of the in-
termediate and interacting scales at higher Reynolds numbers. As shown by Head
and Bandyopadhyay (1981),
+
also indicates the reduction of the hairpin vortex
diameter and the increase in its aspect ratio as the Reynolds number increases. The
value of
+
in a typical laboratory experiment is O[1000], whereas it approaches
100,000 in the boundary layer developing over the space shuttle (Bandyopadhyay
1991). This variable is pertinent to the understanding of the mechanism of drag re-
duction by outer-layer devices (Anders 1990a). On the other hand, Re
is a Reynolds
number that is also called a stability parameter by Black (1968). In Blacks work and
later in Sreenivasans (1988), Re
.
2
In this viscous sublayer, several turbulence statistics can be
asymptotically estimated fromconsiderations of the no-slip condition and continuity
and dynamical equations. Following Monin and Yaglom (1971) and using experi-
mental data, Sreenivasan (1989) gives the following Taylors series expressions, in
wall units, for the mean streamwise velocity, for the root-mean-square value of the
three uctuating velocity components, and for the Reynolds stress, respectively:
U
+
= y
+
1 10
4
y
+
4
+1.6 10
6
y
+
5
+ (5.2)
u
+
= 0.3y
+
+c
1
y
+
2
+ (5.3)
v
+
= 0.008y
+
2
+c
2
y
+
3
+ (5.4)
w
+
= 0.07y
+
+c
3
y
+
2
+ (5.5)
uv
+
= 4 10
4
y
+
3
8 10
6
y
+
4
+ . (5.6)
2
For hydraulically rough walls (i.e., where the average roughness height is greater than the viscous
sublayer thickness), the relevant scaling parameters are the characteristic roughness height and friction
velocity.
5.3 FLOW REGIMES 65
Figure 5.3: Schematic of the different regions within a wall-bounded ow
at typical laboratory and eld Reynolds numbers.
where the overbar and prime denote, respectively, mean and root-mean-square
values.
For y
+
- 5, the leading term of each of the preceding expansions sufces. Note,
however, that the experimentally determined leading coefcients in Eqs. (5.3)(5.5)
are lower than those computed from direct numerical simulations. Mansour, Kim,
and Moin (1988) analyzed the channel-ow database generated by Kim et al. (1987)
and reported the following leading-term coefcients for u
+
, v
+
, and w
+
: 0.36,
0.0086, and 0.19, respectively. The last coefcient, in particular, is almost three
times that of the corresponding leading term determined experimentally. The reason
may be due to the rapid drop in the spanwise velocity uctuations as the wall is
approached, and thus a very small hot-wire probe or LDV focus would be needed to
realize the true value.
With three terms, Eq. (5.2) for the mean velocity is valid up to y
+
= 20. Note
that the constants in the preceding equations are not necessarily universal. As will be
66 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
discussed later, clearly discernible Reynolds number effects will be demonstrated for
all higher-order statistical quantities even in the near-wall region.
The buffer layer is where both the viscous stress and the turbulence shear stress
are important and the peak production and dissipation of turbulence kinetic energy
occur (at about y
+
=12, seemingly independent of the global Reynolds number).
In the buffer layer, the characteristic local Reynolds number of yu
, =30 is ex-
ceedingly low, and turbulence cannot be maintained unless buffeted constantly by
strong disturbances, presumably from the outer layer. This region merges with the
constant-Reynolds-stress layer.
5.3.2 Constant-Reynolds-Stress Region
This region, loosely interpreted
3
to include all points within the 3 dB points
of the peak Reynolds stress, extends from y
+
=30 to y,a =0.2, where a is the pipe
radius. Here, the distance fromthe wall y is much larger than the viscous length scale,
,u
, but much smaller than the pipe radius (or the boundary layer thickness, , for
an external ow). Note that the upper extent of this region is a constant fraction of
the boundary layer thickness but varies with Reynolds number when expressed in
wall units (see Figure 5.3).
In this region, viscous stresses are negligible, and the momentum ux is accom-
plished nearly entirely by turbulence. The only relevant length scale is y itself, and the
square root of the nearly constant Reynolds stress, (uv
max
)
1,2
, is the appropriate
velocity scale. Thus, the mean-velocity gradient may be expressed as
U
y
(uv
max
)
1
2
y
. (5.7)
The well-known logarithmic velocity prole follows directly from integrating
Eq. (5.7) and using the velocity at the edge of the viscous sublayer as a boundary
condition
U
+
=
1
ln y
+
+ B (5.8)
where is the von K arm an constant. Both and Bare presumably universal constants
and are determined empirically for at-plate boundary layers to be approximately
0.41 and 5.0, respectively. Slightly different values are used for the two constants in
the case of pipe or channel ows. In that case, Eq. (5.8) holds almost up to the center-
line of the channel. As the Reynolds number increases, the extent of the logarithmic
region (in wall units) increases, and the maximum Reynolds stress approaches the
value of the viscous stress at the wall
(uv
max
)
1
2
u
2
1 (5.9)
Several other methods can be used to derive the logarithmic velocity prole. Amix-
ing length, based on momentum transport, that simply varies linearly with distance
fromthe wall, = y, again yields Eq. (5.8). Millikans (1939) asymptotic analysis re-
covers the log-relation by assuming the existence of a region of overlap where both the
inner and outer laws are simultaneously valid (see also the rarely cited albeit relevant
3
Strictly speaking, the Reynolds stress is not really constant anywhere in a pipe or channel ow.
5.3 FLOW REGIMES 67
article by Izakson 1937). All models invariably rely on the presence of the constant-
stress layer experimentally observed at high Reynolds number. Despite copious evi-
dence for the existence of a logarithmic region in the mean-velocity prole, the whole
log-lawscenario has been periodically questioned (see, for example, Barenblatt 1979,
1993; Malkus 1979; Long and Chen 1981; George et al. 1992, 1994; Barenblatt and
Prostokishin 1993). We will return to this point later in Section 5.5.1.
The arguments used by Millikan (1939) to derive the logarithmic relation for
the boundary layer are analogous to those employed to establish the universal equi-
librium theory of turbulence, which was called the theory of local similarity by its
originator Kolmogorov (1941a,b,c; 1962).
4
For the boundary layer, an inertial sub-
layer exists at sufciently large Reynolds numbers, and the overall ow dynamics
is independent of viscosity, which merely provides a momentum sink of prescribed
strength at the wall. Similarly, an inertial subrange exists in the turbulence energy
spectrum when the Reynolds number is large enough. There, the wave number is
larger than that for the large eddies but smaller than the dissipative wave numbers.
The viscosity again provides the dissipative sink for kinetic energy at the small-scale
end of the turbulence spectrum. At high Re, the spectral shape in the inertial sub-
range is nearly completely determined by the energy ux across the wave number
domain. The amount of this energy ux, and therefore the eventual rate of dissipa-
tion, is determined by the dynamics of the large, energy-containing eddies. Changing
the viscosity (i.e., Re) has no inuence on the rate of energy dissipationit simply
changes the scale at which the conversion of kinetic energy to heat takes place.
Scaling arguments similar to those leading to Eqs. (5.7) and (5.8) can be used in
the constant-Reynolds-stress region to show that
5
u
y
(5.13)
where P
K.E.
and D
K.E.
are the production and dissipation of turbulence kinetic energy,
respectively. Additionally, a portion of the power spectrum for each of the three
velocity components exhibits a 1 power-law in this same region governed by a
constant turbulence shear stress transmitted across its different uid layers.
The total stress is approximately constant throughout the viscous layer and the
constant-Reynolds-stress region. This is the so-called inner layer (see Figure 5.4), and
for a smooth wall the mean-velocity prole there is given by the unique similarity
law of the wall rst formulated by Prandtl (1925a)
U
+
= f (y
+
) (5.14)
4
The book by Frisch (1995) is a fascinating reading of the legacy of Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov and
his contribution to turbulence theory.
5
The values of the constants in Eqs. (5.10)(5.13) are determined empirically from mostly low-Reynolds-
number experiments. Again, Section 5.6 will reveal that these constants depend, in fact, on the Reynolds
number.
68 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
Figure 5.4: Normalized turbulence kinetic energy production rate as a function of normal distance from
the wall. Data from a typical laboratory at-plate boundary layer [after Kline et al. 1967].
where f is a universal function presumably independent of Reynolds number and
streamwise location. The inner law is the same for both internal and external ows.
5.3.3 Outer Layer
Beyond the constant-stress region, an outer layer is characterized by a diminishing
turbulence shear stress. Note that some researchers include the constant-Reynolds-
stress region as part of the outer region. This is perhaps an accurate inclusion because
the part of the boundary layer where the logarithmic law is valid is, strictly speaking,
the region of overlap between the inner and outer laws (see Figure 5.4).
In internal ows, intermittency of turbulence and interaction with potential
freestream are absent. There is, however, an interaction of turbulence from the op-
posite wall in the case of a two-dimensional channel, and this is even more complex
in the case of a circular pipe. Furthermore, fully developed conditions for pipes and
channels are dened as all time-averaged owquantities (except static pressure) being
independent of x. Therefore, the core region of a pipe or channel ow differs from
the outer layer of a growing boundary layer.
The appropriate length scale in the core region is the pipe radius a (or the
boundary-layer thickness for an external ow). The mean-velocity prole is char-
acterized by the velocity defect (U
o
U), where U
o
is the velocity at the edge of the
shear layer (centerline velocity U
c
for a fully-developed pipe ow). The velocity-defect
(or, more appropriately, momentum-defect) law, formulated by von K arm an (1930),
is given by a second universal function
(U
o
U)
u
= g
(5.15)
This equation is valid even in the logarithmic region and appears to be well conrmed
experimentally.
5.4 COMPARISON WITH OTHER SHEAR FLOWS 69
For a turbulent boundary layer, Coles (1956) combined the defect law and the
inner law to give the following empirical velocity prole valid throughout the entire
wall-bounded shear layer:
U
+
= f (y
+
) +
H
(5.16)
where is the von K arm an constant and H is a prole parameter that depends
strongly on Re for small Reynolds numbers. Coles idea is that a typical boundary-
layer ow can be viewed as a wakelike structure constrained by a wall. Intermittency
and entrainment give rise to the wakelike behavior of the outer part of the ow,
which is sensitive to pressure gradient and freestreamturbulence. The wall constraint
is closely related to the magnitude of the surface shear stress and is sensitive to the
wall roughness and other surface conditions.
For equilibrium ows (Clauser 1954), the prole parameter H is independent of
streamwise location. The universal wake function W(y,) is the same for all two-
dimensional boundary-layer ows. Its form is similar to that describing a wake ow
or, more precisely, the mean-velocity prole at a point of separation or reattachment.
For example, the wake function can be adequately represented by
W
= 2 sin
2
2
y
(5.17)
Note, however, that this simple expression obtained empirically by Coles (1969)
does not yield zero velocity gradient at the edge of the boundary layer, as it should.
Lewkowicz (1982) proposed an alternative quartic polynomial that removes this
deciency.
At the same Reynolds number, deviation of the actual mean-velocity distribution
fromthe logarithmic prole in the core region of a pipe or channel owis smaller than
that in the outer region of a boundary layer. In fact, as mentioned in Section 5.3.2,
the logarithmic velocity prole, Eq. (5.8) with slightly modied constants and B,
holds approximately up to the centerline of the pipe.
5.4 Comparison with Other Shear Flows
Before proceeding to investigate the specic effects of Reynolds number on the mean
and turbulence quantities of wall-bounded ows, it is instructive to give a coarse
comparison between such ows on the one hand and free-shear ows on the other.
As will be illustrated, the presence of the wall is of paramount importance to the issue
at hand. No matter howlarge the Reynolds number is, viscosity must be important in
a progressively shrinking region close to the wall, and Reynolds number dependence
persists indenitely.
Wakes, jets, and mixing layers are profoundly different from channel and pipe
ows and boundary layers. The absence of the wall in free-shear ows implies that
at sufciently high Reynolds numbers, the ow is nearly inviscid and by implication
Reynolds-number-independent (Dimotakis 1991, 1993). For wall-bounded ows, on
the other hand, there is always a small, progressively shrinking region near the surface
where viscosity must be important, no matter how large the Reynolds number is.
In boundary layers and channel ows, the overall behavior and gross structure
of turbulence are always affected by viscosity near the wall, whereas the direct
70 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
effect of viscosity gradually diminishes away from the surface. This implies that the
velocity and length scales must be different near the wall and away from it. The
disparity of scales for wall-bounded ows increases with Reynolds number, and true
self-preservation may never be achieved unless the inner and outer scales are forced
to be proportional at all Reynolds numbers. This latter scenario can be realized,
for example, in the very special case of ow between two planes converging at a
prescribed angle.
In wall-bounded ows, very large levels of turbulence uctuations are maintained
close to the wall despite the strong viscous as well as turbulence diffusion. As indicated
in Figure 5.4, at a typical laboratory Reynolds number of say Re
= O[10
3
], more
than about a third of the total turbulence kinetic energy production (and dissipation)
occurs in the 2% of the boundary-layer thickness adjacent to the wall. The fraction
of this thickness decreases as the Reynolds number increases. The near-wall region is
directly affected by viscosity,
6
and its importance to the maintenance of turbulence
is clearly disproportional to its minute size.
The thinness of the viscous sublayer presents a great challenge to both physical
and numerical experiments. Because this region is closest to the wall and is where
drag acts, it is extremely important at all Reynolds numbers. Yet in contemporary
direct numerical simulations, the viscous sublayer of ve wall units is resolved only
up to 1.4 wall units. In measurements, probe resolutions are even worse; other than in
low-Reynolds-number or oil-channel experiments, a probe length of
+
-7 is indeed
rare (Bandyopadhyay 1991).
In free-shear layers, on the other hand, energy production peaks near the inection
points of the mean-velocity prole. Production and dissipation are spread over the
entire ow width, as shown in Figure 5.5 depicting the turbulence energy balance
for a typical two-dimensional wake. Above a reasonably modest Reynolds number,
O[10
3
], all turbulence quantities become invariant to additional changes in Reynolds
number.
Despite these differences between boundary layers and free-shear ows, there
are also some similarities. The outer region of a boundary layer is characterized by
an intermittent rotationalirrotational ow, much the same as that observed in all
free-shear ows. Moreover, the outer ow is more or less inviscid at sufciently high
Reynolds numbers, which again is similar to jets, wakes, and mixing layers. The
interaction between the outer, or wake, region of a turbulent boundary layer and
the potential ow in the freestream is also similar to that in wakes and other free-
shear ows. The preceding discussion has addressed observational similarities and
differences between the wall-bounded turbulent ows and the free-shear layers. In
what follows, they are compared based on dynamic issues, such as the applicability
of an inectional inviscid breakdown mechanism, and it is shown that the subject is
still wide open.
Free-Shear Flows
Inviscid stability theory has been successfully used to predict the observed coher-
ent structures in turbulent free-shear ows, but it is not clear that similar arguments
can be made when a wall is present. In other words, it is not obvious that the same
6
Through the action of viscous stresses for a smooth wall, or through the action of pressure drag resulting
from the separated ow around discrete elements of sufcient size for rough walls.
5.4 COMPARISON WITH OTHER SHEAR FLOWS 71
Figure 5.5: Turbulence energy balance in a typical plane wake [after Townsend 1976].
inviscid, mean-ow breakdown mechanism responsible for generating the large ed-
dies in, say, a mixing layer is operable in the case of a boundary layer. Consider
the mean streamwise velocity and mean spanwise vorticity distributions for a plane
mixing layer, jet, and wake and for a two-dimensional boundary layer.
Atwo-dimensional mixing layer may be modeled as a single vortex sheet placed at
the location of peak vorticity (at the point of inection of the mean-velocity prole).
The local circulation per unit length of the vortex sheet, (x), is equal to the integral
of the mean spanwise vorticity, O
z
, across the shear layer
(x) =
O
z
dy =
dU
dy
dy = U
1
U
2
(5.18)
where U
1
and U
2
are, respectively, the velocities of the high- and low-speed sides of
the mixing layer. The vortex sheet is inviscidly unstable to two-dimensional pertur-
bations, and the resulting KelvinHelmholtz instability eventually evolves into the
omnipresent two-dimensional vortices observed even in high-Reynolds-number mix-
ing layers (Chapter 4). The resulting vortex blobs correspond to the saturation state
of this instability. The total circulation in the blobs is conserved, I = (x)Lx, where
72 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
Lx is the center-to-center distance between adjacent discrete vortices. Secondary in-
stabilities of the roll-up structures result in smaller longitudinal vortices and other
three-dimensional, hairpinlike eddies.
Similar reasoning leads to the in-phase counterrotating vortices for plane jets and
the staggered K arm an vortex street for two-dimensional wakes. Both jets and wakes
can be modeled as two vortex sheets with opposite signs of vorticity. Again, each
sheet is situated at the location of spanwise vorticity extrema, and total circulation
is conserved.
Wall-Bounded Flows
For a turbulent wall-bounded ow it is not obvious that the observed large-eddy
structures (Chapter 4) can be derived using similar inviscid arguments. If the bound-
ary layer is modeled by a vortex sheet in which the entire mean-ow vorticity has
been concentrated, the presence of the wall imposes a boundary condition that neces-
sitates the use of an image vortex sheet of opposite vorticity sign. Such considerations
led Sreenivasan (1988) to propose that the large eddies are the result of an instability
of a caricature of the real boundary layer. Two- and three-dimensional instabilities,
both inviscid and viscous, of this caricature ow lead to a plausible explanation for
many observed features, including the double-roller structures, hairpin eddies, and
low-speed streaks (see Chapter 4).
It turns out that a somewhat similar argument was advanced two decades earlier
by Black (1968). He treated the mean-ow breakdown as an intermittent, three-
dimensional, inviscid process in which a mechanism analogous to the starting vortex
of an impulsively started airfoil is in play. Black thereby successfully predicted the
formation of an array of hairpin vortices caused by a passing instability wave. Note
that, although Theodorsen (1955) predicted the formation of hairpin vortices, the
aspect of an array of them is absent in his work. In Blacks work u
, appears as
an important stability parameter. Mention should also be made of the waveguide
theory developed by Landahl (1967, 1972, 1977, 1980, 1990) to explain the cause
and effect relationships for the variety of coherent structures observed in turbulent
boundary layers.
In Sreenivasans (1988) model, a fat vortex sheet and its image are located on either
side of the wall at a distance corresponding to the position of the peak Reynolds stress.
Because of the absence of inection points in the interior of the canonical turbulent
ow, Sreenivasan (1988) chose the alternative location of peak uv based upon
experience with transitional boundary layers.
7
From all available boundary-layer as
well as channel-ow data, this location appears to scale with the geometric mean
of the inner and outer scales.
8
Sreenivasan (1988) termed that position the critical
layer,
9
although any evidence for the existence of such a two-dimensional layer, where
small perturbations are presumed to grow rapidly, is lacking. Using linear stability
theory, Sreenivasan successfully showed that the primary instability of the vortex
7
Note that in the past, both Clauser (1956) and Corrsin (1957) have also attempted to treat the turbulence
regenerative process as primarily similar to the breakdown mechanism of a critical laminar layer.
8
This powerful result is contrary to the universal law of the wall and will be analytically demonstrated
in Section 5.6.2.
9
In a transitional wall-bounded ow, the location of peak Reynolds stress coincides with the critical-layer
position. Because this location shows similar trends with Reynolds number to that in a turbulent ow,
Sreenivasan (1988) chose to place his proposed vortex sheet at this position.
5.5 MEAN FLOW 73
sheet and its image yields two-dimensional roll-up structures, which in turn excite
low-speed streaks and bursting. Subsequent instability of the roll-up structures leads
to hairpin eddies and double-roller structures. One problem with this picture is that,
unlike the case of free-shear ows, the predicted two-dimensional structures have
never been observed in an actual turbulent wall-bounded ow. Sreenivasan (1988)
himself allows that his simplistic model is unnished and has a number of weaknesses
but offers it as a target for useful criticism.
Experience with turbulence modeling, however, suggests that the turbulence in
a wall-bounded ow is not derived directly from the mean ow. In the earliest tur-
bulence models, shear stress is derived from the mean-velocity prole. Such models
have not been widely successful. Townsend (1976) and Bradshaw et al. (1967) have
argued that instead there is a much closer connection between the shear stress and the
turbulence structure. Townsends work was limited to the near-wall region, whereas
Bradshawet al. have extended the argument to the entire shear layer. Direct measure-
ments of typical eddies have supported their assertion (Falco 1974, Newman 1974).
There is a rst-order direct connection between the mean ow and turbulence in a
a free-shear ow but not in a wall-bounded ow. In a mixing layer, for example,
the experimentally observed two-dimensional rollers are the direct result of an in-
viscid instability of the mean-velocity prole. Their characteristic dimension is equal
to the layer thickness, and they contain almost all of the mean-ow vorticity. In a
wall-bounded ow, on the other hand, the three-dimensional hairpin vortices are the
result of a secondary or a tertiary instability, and their diameters are typically much
smaller than the boundary layer thickness. The hairpins contain only a portion of
the mean-ow vorticitythat is, they are farther removed from the mean ow.
The arguments above indicate that the existence of an inviscid breakdown mech-
anism responsible for the self-sustenance of the turbulence has not been rmly es-
tablished. In other words, it is not clear that the observed coherent structures in a
boundary layer or channel ow are the result of an instability of the mean ow or its
caricature. Until this issue is resolved, progress in the understanding of wall-bounded
ows will continue to lag behind that of free-shear ows. Despite the importance of
this dynamical issue, research on the organized nature of turbulent boundary layers
has remained largely conned to the kinematics, and high-payoff turbulence control
strategies are yet to be developed.
5.5 Mean Flow
Before investigating the issue of Reynolds number effects on coherent structures,
available data for the mean velocity and higher-order statistics of wall-bounded
ows are reviewed in the present and following sections. The mean-ow velocity in
the streamwise direction is a relatively easy quantity to measure, and almost every
paper on wall-bounded ows has such measurements (see, for example, Preston and
Sweeting 1944; Laufer 1951; Comte-Bellot 1965; Eckelmann 1974; Purtell,
Klebanoff, and Buckley 1981; Andreopoulos et al. 1984; Wei and Willmarth 1989).
Requirements for probe resolution are modest and, except very near the wall,
10
10
But here lies the caveat. It is the slope of the velocity prole at the wall that is needed to compute the
velocity scale used to collapse the data.
74 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
most published data are reliable to better than 1%. This is obviously not the case
for measurements of higher-order statistics, and this point will be revisited in the
following section.
For a turbulent wall-bounded ow, the region directly affected by viscosity, the
viscous sublayer plus the buffer layer, occupies the progressively smaller proportion
of the boundary-layer thickness as the Reynolds number increases (see Figure 5.3).
The rest of the ow is dominated by inertia, and the effect of viscosity enters only as
an inner boundary condition set by the viscous region. It is not surprising, therefore,
that the Reynolds number has a considerable effect on the velocity prole. As Re
increases, the mean-velocity prole becomes fuller, and the shape factor H (ratio of
displacement thickness to momentumthickness) decreases accordingly. For example,
at Re
as
Figure 5.6: Mean-velocity proles for different Reynolds numbers. Plot from the article by Purtell
et al. (1981) as it appears in Physics of Fluids.
5.5 MEAN FLOW 75
lowas 500. This is rather surprising when one considers that at this Reynolds number
a constant-stress region is virtually nonexistent and the maximum Reynolds stress is
substantially less than u
2
to use for
a given data set. Unfortunately, direct measurements of
w
have, for the most part, not been
very satisfactory for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that the results did not
conrmthe Millikan/Clauser theory. Therefore it has been common practice (since Clauser
1954) to choose values for u
which are consistent with the universal log law results for
the matched layer, by which is usually meant the constants chosen fromthe more abundant
pipe and channel ow data. Coles (1969) notes that the results obtained in this way are
seldom consistent with the momentum integral equation. Nonetheless, in spite of the fact
the measurement errors tend to cancel when the integrals are computed from the velocity
proles and therefore should be more accurate than the proles themselves, the friction
results calculated from them have been usually discarded in favor of the Clauser method.
Typical of such results is Figure 5 [reproduced in this book as Figure 5.7] which shows
the data of Purtell et al. (1981) in inner variables using the wall stress determined from
the Clauser method (bottommost) and from the velocity gradient near the wall (topmost).
Note the excellent collapse in the log region of the former, but also recognize that
the data should collapse best in this region because u
from the velocity gradient were made using a linear t for the data in
the region 3 - y
+
- 6, and points closer to the wall were ignored since they were clearly
contaminated by near wall effects on the wires. (It will be seen below that there is evidence
that the shear stress has been underestimated by about 20% by this method, but with
relative errors which are nearly Reynolds number independent.) The data show clearly
that the linear region both exists and the data in it collapse nearly perfectly. Moreover the
extent of the linear region appears to be greater than for pipes and channels, but decreases
with increasing Reynolds number. As expected from the new theory, the data outside
the linear layer does not perfectly collapse in inner variables, but shows the Reynolds
number dependence which must be present if the inner and outer scale velocities are
different.
Similar proles for the near wall region were published by Blackwelder and Haritonidis
(1983) who documented the difference between the shear stress inferred from the velocity
gradient near the wall and froma t to the log region. These systematic differences were
typically 15% and are tabulated in Table I of their paper. Their plot of the velocity prole
(normalized using the shear stress determined from the linear region) is strikingly similar
to that of the Purtell data plotted in Figure 5 [Figure 5.7 herein]. Of special interest is
the fact that the very near wall data show clearly the onset of the near wall measurement
errors well inside the linear region, except for the highest Reynolds numbers.
In the absence of direct force measurements, the fact that the velocity prole near the
wall collapses in both these data sets using the wall shear stress inferred from the gradient
suggests strongly that both the mean velocity and the shear stress have been reasonably
estimated, at least at the lower Reynolds numbers. A similar inference cannot be made
using a value of the stress which collapses a log region, since (as pointed out above) it
is based on the assumptions that such a region exists and that the constants describing it
are Reynolds number independent. Clearly the second of these is incorrect if the proles
normalized using the shear stress inferred from the velocity gradient are correct, and the
rst may be wrong as well.
The rst important inference which can be seen from these gures is that the data
collapse (if a cross-over can be called collapse) in the log region only if the shear
stress is calculated from a method which forces it to by assuming such a layer exists, and
then only by compromising the collapse in the linear region. On the other hand, when the
shear stress inferred from the mean velocity gradient is used, the proles collapse well very
close to the wall, but not in the log layer. The lack of collapse in the linear layer when
the Clauser method is used is particularly serious since there are no adjustable constants
or Reynolds number dependencies here: the measurements must yield u
+
= y
+
if they are
to be believed.
A second important inference from the gures is that when the data are normalized
by a proper shear stress, the point of departure from the linear region moves closer to
the wall with increasing Reynolds number toward what might be a limiting value. This
is clear evidence that if there is an intermediate layer outside the linear region, then it
is only asymptotically independent of Reynolds number. The apparent Reynolds num-
ber dependence of the extent of the near-linear region is consistent with the new theory
78 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
presented earlier since only this innermost region of the ow is Reynolds number inde-
pendent in inner variables. Once the mesolayer is entered, neither u
nor U
completely
collapse the data (except in the innite Reynolds number limit). Many (Gad-el-Hak and
Bandyopadhyay 1994) have noted similar trends for the turbulence moment data near the
wall, especially u
2
and uv.
5.5.2 Alternatives to the Logarithmic Prole
Despite copious evidence for the existence of the log-law, the whole scenario lead-
ing to it has been periodically questioned. From a purely practical point of view, a
portion of the streamwise mean-velocity prole could equally well t either a log-
arithmic relation or a power-law. If the mean-velocity prole for a pipe ow (or
boundary layer) is to be tted with a power-law of the form
U
U
c
= b
y
a
1
n
(5.19)
the value of the exponent (1,n) will decrease as the velocity prole becomes fuller. In
other words, n increases as Re increases and H decreases. For example, the smooth-
pipe-ow data of Nikuradse (1932) indicate that n changes from 6 to 10 as the
Reynolds number varies in the range of Re
a
=2.53 10
3
to 1.85 10
6
(Schlichting
1979).
Sreenivasan (1989) argues that although the power-law used by engineers to
describe the mean-velocity prole has been discredited by scientists since Millikan
(1939) derived the logarithmic law from asymptotic arguments, the basis for the
power-law is a priori as sound as that for the log-lawparticularly at low Reynolds
numbers (see also Barenblatt 1979, 1993; Barenblatt and Prostokishin 1993). The
behavior of the exponent (1,n) as Re
a
is of particular interest. If it tends to
zero, the log-lawis recovered. If, on the other hand, the limiting value of the exponent
is a nonzero constant, the log-law does not strictly hold. This implies that an inertial
sublayer is lacking and, therefore, that viscous effects persist even at innitely large
Reynolds number. Such a scenario is consistent with the suggestion by Long and
Chen (1981) that the inner ow is the outcome of an interplay between wall effects
and outer effects. According to them, it is strange that the matched layer between
one characterized by inertia and another characterized by viscosity depends only
on inertia. Long and Chen suggest that a mesolayer intrudes between the inner
and outer regions, preventing the overlap assumed in the derivation of the classical
logarithmic velocity prole. Unfortunately, existing experimental or numerical mean-
velocity data cannot be readily used to explore this important issue because the
difference between a logarithmic relation and a power-law with a large but nite n
is imperceptible (see Kailasnath 1993 for a comprehensive review of available data).
George et al. (1992, 1993, 1994) and most recently George and Castillo (1997)
have provided the most serious challenge to the validity of the log-law for external
wall-bounded ows. As discussed in Section 5.5.1, George and his colleagues assert
that boundary layer data taken at different Reynolds numbers collapse in the log-
region only if the shear stress is calculated from a method (i.e., the Clausers method)
that forces it to by assuming such a layer exists. Such supercial collapse compro-
mises the collapse in the viscous sublayer where no adjustable constants or Reynolds
number dependence should exist. As an alternative, George et al. (1993) used
5.5 MEAN FLOW 79
measured shear stress to normalize the data of Purtell et al. (1981) and showed
that the proles collapse well very close to the wall but not in the log-region, where
clearly discernible Reynolds number dependence is depicted. To remedy the situ-
ation, George et al. (1993) proposed matching a newvelocity-defect lawwith explicit
Reynolds number dependence and the traditional law of the wall. The result in the
matched region is a power-law velocity prole of the form
U
U
o
= C
o
n
+ B
o
(5.20)
U
u
= C
i
n
+ B
i
(5.21)
where the coefcients B
i
, B
o
, C
i
, C
o
and the exponent n are Reynolds number de-
pendent, but all are asymptotically constant. In a subsequent article, George et al.
(1994) have shown that the additive coefcients B
i
and B
o
are identically zero. Using
the two equations above, the friction coefcient is readily expressed as the Reynolds
number to the power 2n,(1 +n) .
George et al. (1994) asserted that their approach removes many of the unsatisfying
features of the classical Millikan (1939) theory. Furthermore, they argued that a clear
distinction should be made between internal and external wall-bounded ows. For
fully developed pipe and channel ows, the streamwise homogeneity ensures that the
pressure gradient and wall-shear stress are not independent, and thus u
is the correct
scaling velocity for the entire shear layer, including the core region. This results in a
log-law, although the owhas no constant-stress layer. The growing, inhomogeneous
boundary layer, in contrast, is governed by a power-law even though it does, at least
for zero pressure gradient and high Re, have a constant-stress layer. The matched
region of a boundary layer retains a dependence on streamwise distance and hence
never becomes Reynolds number independent. The same arguments presented here
for the mean ow could be extended to higher-order statistics.
The difference in the inner region between at-plate boundary layers and fully
developed channel ows explored above might have serious implications on the prin-
ciple and use of the Preston tube, a device widely employed for measuring the local
mean friction-coefcient. Such a gauge is commonly calibrated in a pipe ow and
relies on the universality of the inner layer to compute the skin friction in a at-plate
boundary layer. Such extrapolation is thus questionable, and direct measurements of
wall-shear stress are clearly preferred.
George and Castillo (1993) have also extended the new scaling law described
earlier for the at-plate ow to boundary layers with pressure gradient. Inclusion of
roughness or compressibility effects could proceed along similar attempts made in
the past for the classical theory (Hama 1954, Coles 1962).
The fresh look at the turbulent boundary layer by George and his colleagues is
intriguing and deserves further scrutiny. Independent conrmation of their claims
is needed, and carefully controlled boundary layer experiments over a wide range
of Reynolds numbers would be most useful. Low-Reynolds-number experiments in
which the linear region is resolved and the wall-shear stress is measured directly would
be particularly valuable. If validated, their new theory indicates that the boundary
layer is governed by a different scaling law than commonly believed. Explicit, albeit
weak, Reynolds number dependence is shown for the mean velocity prole all the way
80 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
down to the edge of the viscous sublayer. The matched region retains a dependence
on streamwise distance, and hence Reynolds number effects will always persist for
all turbulence quantities.
5.5.3 The Illusory Asymptotic State
Although inner scaling appears
12
to collapse wall-layer mean-ow data onto a
single curve regardless of the Reynolds number, the situation is not that simple in
the outer layer. As discussed in Section 5.3.3, Coles (1956) proposed to represent the
entire mean-velocity prole in any two-dimensional turbulent boundary layer by a
linear superposition of two universal functions, the lawof the wall and the lawof the
wake. In fact, Coles suggested a simple extension of his empirical law to represent
even yawed and three-dimensional ows. Recall Eq. (5.16)
U
+
= f (y
+
) +
H
(5.22)
The rst term on the right-hand side is valid for any smooth wall-bounded ow, and
available evidence appears to indicate that the function f is independent of Reynolds
number, pressure gradient, and freestream turbulence. This term supposedly repre-
sents all mixing processes in the wall layer governed primarily by viscosity. The wall
constraint is felt mainly in the viscous sublayer, the buffer layer, and the logarithmic
portion of the velocity prole. For rough walls, particularly when the roughness is suf-
ciently pronounced, the viscous length scale is simply replaced by the characteristic
roughness height. For both smooth and rough walls, the appropriate velocity scale
is derived from the magnitude of the surface shear stress.
The second term, representing turbulence mixing processes dominated by inertia,
is the product of the universal wake function W(y,) and the ratio of the prole pa-
rameter H to the von K arm an constant . The parameter H depends on the pressure
gradient, the freestream turbulence, and whether the ow is internal or external but
is not directly affected by wall conditions such as roughness, and so forth. For a
at-plate boundary layer, the prole parameter increases with Reynolds number but
presumably asymptotically approaches a constant value at high enough Re. When
Coles (1962) plotted the change of the maximum deviation of the mean velocity
from the logarithmic law, LU
+
, with Reynolds number, it reached a constant value
for Re
6000. Coles (1962) termed the owat this high Reynolds number equilib-
rium, which led to the widespread perception that the ow becomes independent of
Reynolds number beyond this value. Because the maximum deviation, the so-called
strength of the wake component, occurs close to the edge of the boundary layer and
W(y,) has been normalized such that W(1) = 2, the strength of the wake component
is approximately related to the prole parameter by
LU
+
2
H
(5.23)
It is clear that the strength of the wake depends upon the somewhat arbitrary way in
which the logarithmic portion of the velocity prole is tted, that is, on the particular
values of and B chosen.
12
At least until the recent work of George and his colleagues cited in the previous subsection.
5.5 MEAN FLOW 81
Unfortunately, when Coles (1962) extended the plot to larger values of Reynolds
numbers, it became clear that the presumed asymptotic state is merely an illusion.
The strength of the wake component started decreasing again at about Re
>15,000,
although very slowly compared with the rise rate for Re
appear to be
genuine and have been conrmed in several other experiments, as summarized by
Mabey (1979). The maximumLU
+
, reached at about Re
= 610
4
, but their Mach num-
ber is near one, and they are rather expensive as well as heavily scheduled (Bushnell
and Greene 1991). Tunnels using liquid helium I are an attractive, low-cost alter-
native to the much larger nitrogen tunnels (Donnelly 1991). Helium facilities can
match the Reynolds numbers of the transonic wind tunnels but with essentially zero
Mach number and much smaller sizes (e.g., 1 cm 1 cm test section). Instrumenting
the smaller facilities with high-resolution velocity or pressure probes is at present
problematic, although the rapidly developing microfabrication technology has the
potential for producing inexpensive megahertz-frequency and micron-size sensors
(see, for example, L ofdahl, Stemme, and Johansson 1989, 1991, 1992; Ho and Tai
1996, 1998; Gad-el-Hak 1999; L ofdahl and Gad-el-Hak 1999).
A commonly accessible large-scale, high-Reynolds-number facility is the atmo-
spheric boundary layer. The ow is virtually incompressible, and the momentum-
thickness Reynolds number in the atmosphere can be as much as four orders of
82 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
magnitude higher than that in typical laboratory experiments. Unfortunately, such a
natural laboratory has several drawbacks. Firstly, the wall in this case is almost
always rough, and direct comparison with the canonical boundary layer is difcult.
Secondly, the atmospheric experiments are not well controlled, and thus the ow
conditions are neither precisely repeatable nor documentable to the needed detail
(see however the thesis by Kailasnath 1993, who was able to carry out useful com-
parison between low-Reynolds-number laboratory data and high-Reynolds-number
atmospheric data).
The so-called super-pipe facility is currently operational at Princeton University
(Zagarola 1996; Zagarola et al. 1996). The pipe has a diameter of 12.7 cm and a
length-to-diameter ratio of 200. This high-pressure-air (200 atm) pipe owis capable
of providing very high Reynolds numbers of up to Re
a
= 2.3 10
7
at a reasonably
large scale and low Mach number and, it is hoped, will help in answering many of
the questions raised in this chapter.
For the present at least, it is simply not known if the mean velocity in a wall-
bounded ow ever achieves true self-preservation. As will be seen in the next section
for higher-order statistics, the evidence for lack of self-preservation is stronger.
5.6 Higher-Order Statistics
Compared with the mean ow, higher-order statistical quantities are more difcult to
measure, and the issue of Reynolds number effects is even murkier. For quantities such
as root-mean-square, Reynolds stress, skewness, and spectrum, the issues of spatial
as well as temporal probe resolutions, three-dimensional effects, and boundary-layer
tripping devices become much more critical. In contrast to mean ow, reliable data
for higher-order statistics are scarce.
A measurement probe essentially integrates the signal over its active sensing area
or volume. This means that velocity or pressure uctuations having scales smaller
than the sensor size are attenuated by the averaging process, and the measured root-
mean-square of the uctuations, for example, is smaller than the true value. Several
studies have shown the importance of probe size in the detection of small-scale struc-
tures in the near-wall region (for example, Willmarth and Bogar 1977; Schewe 1983;
Johansson and Alfredsson 1983; Blackwelder and Haritonidis 1983; Luchik and
Tiederman 1986; Karlsson and Johansson 1986; Ligrani and Bradshaw 1987; Wei
and Willmarth 1989; L ofdahl et al. 1992). As a rule of thumb, probe length much
larger than the viscous sublayer thickness is not acceptable for accurately measuring
turbulence levels and spectra anywhere across the boundary layer, and even smaller
sensing elements are required to resolve dynamical events within the sublayer itself.
In the case of a hot wire, for example, the probe diameter determines its spatial reso-
lution for measuring the time-averaged velocity, whereas the much larger wire length
limits the accuracy of measuring the velocity uctuations.
The issue of sufcient probe resolution is particularly acute when studying
Reynolds number effects. A probe that provides accurate measurements at low Re
may give erroneous results when the Reynolds number is increased and the scales to
be resolved become smaller relative to the probe size. The probe resolution should
be expressed in wall units, and as mentioned above
+
should not be much larger
than 5, where is the probe length.
5.6 HIGHER-ORDER STATISTICS 83
The classic idea of inner scaling is that any turbulence quantity measured at dif-
ferent Reynolds numbers and in different facilities will collapse, at least in the inner
layer, to a single universal prole when nondimensionalized using inner-layer vari-
ables. In contrast to mean-velocity proles, higher-order statistics do not in general
scale with wall-layer variables even deep inside the inner layer. In the following two
subsections, we review Reynolds number effects on the root-mean-square values of
the velocity uctuations and the Reynolds stress. The cited data plus those for the
spectra, skewness and atness factors, and rms and spectrum of the wall-pressure
uctuations were collected from the original publications and presented in more
details in the review article by Gad-el-Hak and Bandyopadhyay (1994). The main
conclusion of this survey is that Reynolds number effects on the turbulence quantities
persist deep into the viscous region.
5.6.1 Root-Mean-Square Velocity Fluctuations
The intensity of turbulence uctuations is dened by its root-mean-square value.
The streamwise velocity uctuations are more readily measured using, for example, a
single hot-wire probe or a two-beam laser Doppler velocimeter. Measuring the other
two velocity components, in contrast, requires two hot wires either in an X-array or
a V-array or four intersecting laser beams. Especially very close to the wall, few reli-
able measurements of the normal velocity components are reported in the literature,
and even fewer are available for the spanwise component. A notable exception is
the oil-channel data reported by Kreplin and Eckelmann (1979), who measured all
three velocity components inside the viscous sublayer. The at-plate data of Purtell
et al. (1981) taken in the range Re
=465
reveals that even in the viscous region itself some weak dependence on Reynolds
number is observed in the rms value of the streamwise velocity uctuations. Purtell
et al. attributed the systematic decrease in u
.
One might argue that the strong Reynolds number effects indicated above will
eventually subside at sufciently high Reynolds number. This is not the case, at least
up to Re
/u
/u
appeared at y
+
=4 and seems to be unique to this particular experiment, but the
authors do not comment on this. Reliable v
/u
is lower than that for the streamwise uctuations and occurs far-
ther away from the wall. Validity of inner scaling deep into the viscous region cannot
be ascertained from available results because of the scarcity of data for y
+
<30.
In view of the poor quality of most of the data, Wei and Willmarth (1989) syste-
matically investigated the Reynolds number effects using a unique high-resolution,
two-component laser-Doppler velocimeter. To reduce the amount of ambient light
in the vicinity of the measuring volume and thus to improve the signal-to-noise-ratio
of the LDV system, four laser beams were entered and exited into the test section via
two narrow slits located at the two side walls of a two-dimensional water channel.
Both slots were covered with an extremely thin (17 m) window of heat-shrinking
5.6 HIGHER-ORDER STATISTICS 85
Mylar lm, which virtually eliminated optical refraction by the window. The laser
beams intersected at a single point away from the wall, and the effective probe
length ranged from 0.66 to 6.43 wall units as the Reynolds number was varied in the
range of Re
a
=300040,000. Beam refraction in the path between the laser source
and the measuring station was minimized using a specially designed optical head.
Wei and Willmarth (1989) ascribed the slight disagreement between the different
data sets available in the literature and theirs to a decreased spatial resolution of the
hot wires used by Laufer (1951), Comte-Bellot (1965), and Johansson and Alfredsson
(1982) at high Reynolds numbers. But, even in the newer data set, the uctuating
turbulence quantities do not scale with wall variables even at as close as 10 viscous
lengths from the wall. In fact, inner scaling does not seem to apply to v
across the
entire portion of the viscous region where measurements are available.
Additional support for Wei and Willmarths (1989) basic conclusion that turbu-
lence quantities in the near-wall region do not scale on wall variables comes from
the boundary layer experiments of Purtell et al. (1981) and Andreopoulous et al.
(1984) referenced earlier in this section as well as from the physical and numerical
channel-ow experiments conducted by Antonia et al. (1992) and the at-plate ex-
periments of Murlis, Tsai, and Bradshaw (1982), Wark and Nagib (1991), Naguib
(1992), and Naguib and Wark (1992).
13
Contrary to the prediction of the univer-
sal theory of the wall, the peak value of u
+
rms
, though occurring at the same y
+
,
increases with Reynolds number. It is, of course, conceivable that wall-layer scaling
might apply over the entire inner layer provided that the Reynolds number is high
enough, but at the moment at least such ultra-high-Reynolds-number experiments
cannot be conducted with sufcient probe resolution.
Coles (1978) summarized the results of fty different experiments conducted in
circular pipes, rectangular channels, and zero-pressure-gradient boundary layers. He
did remark that not all experiments are equally reliable. Nevertheless, Figure 3 of
Coles article indicates that, when the ratio of outer to inner length-scales,
+
, in-
creases from 100 to 10,000, the value of the rms streamwise velocity uctuations
measured at y
+
= 50 and normalized with the corresponding peak value measured
at y
+
15 systematically increases from about 0.6 to 0.9. This result is consistent
with a nonnegligible Reynolds number effect on the turbulence just outside the vis-
cous region.
5.6.2 Reynolds Stress
Reynolds Number Effects
Turbulence shear stress, or Reynolds stress uv, is the most important dynami-
cal quantity affecting the mean motion. The major portion of the momentum trans-
ported in a two-dimensional turbulent wall-bounded ow is accomplished by uv.
Therefore, modeling the behavior of Reynolds stress is one of the primary objec-
tives of various prediction schemes. Simultaneous measurements of the streamwise
and normal velocity uctuations are required to compute the Reynolds stress at any
particular point in the oweld. Provided this is done with high delity in the low-
to-moderate Reynolds-number laboratory experiments, extrapolation to the higher-
13
The channel-ow experiments of Walker and Tiederman (1990) and Harder and Tiederman (1991)
should also be mentioned. Their results do not agree with those of Wei and Willmarth (1989), but
Gad-el-Hak and Bandyopadhyay (1994) concluded that the latter set of data is more reliable.
86 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
Reynolds-number eld conditions is only possible if the Reynolds number effects
are well understood. In this subsection, we review those effects in boundary layers,
channels, and pipes.
In boundary layers, Andreopoulos et al. (1984) measured the normalized cross
correlation uv for a single Reynolds number of Re
1
y
a
(5.24)
where U(y) is the streamwise mean-velocity distribution, and a is the channel half-
width or pipe radius. The friction velocity, or the slope of the velocity prole at the
wall, is related to the constant pressure gradient through
u
2
dU
dy
w
=
dp
dx
(5.25)
where p is the static pressure and and are the uid density and kinematic viscosity,
respectively. In wall units the momentum balance equation (5.24) reads
uv
+
=
dU
+
dy
+
+
1
y
+
a
+
(5.26)
5.6 HIGHER-ORDER STATISTICS 87
Wei and Willmarth (1989) used Eq. ( 5.26) to compute the Reynolds stress proles,
and again the nondimensional proles at different Reynolds numbers do not collapse
in the outer and logarithmic regions and even well into the viscous region. Except
very close to the wall, the agreement between the directly measured Reynolds stress
and that computed from the measured mean velocity and pressure gradient is very
good and attests to the accuracy of the instantaneous velocity traces reconstructed,
ltered, and smoothed from the Doppler burst detector and processor signals. Wei
and Willmarth speculated that the divergence between the directly measured and
computed Reynolds stresses is due to insufcient spatial and temporal resolution in
the direct LDV measurement very close to the wall.
Wei and Willmarth (1989) also computed the turbulence kinetic energy produc-
tion using both the directly measured Reynolds stress and the momentum balance
equation. Except very close to the wall, the two methods of computing uv(dU/dy)
agree within 10%. Neither method leads to a prole collapse even in the viscous
region. The maximum value of kinetic energy production obtained from the momen-
tum balance increases with Reynolds number. Interestingly, although the position
of peak Reynolds stress, expressed in wall units, moves away from the wall as the
Reynolds number increases, the peak turbulence production seems to be xed at
y
+
1215. This point will be revisited later in this subsection.
The measurements of mean velocity and pressure drop in the smooth-pipe-owex-
periments of Nikuradse (1932) and Laufer (1954) were used to compute the Reynolds
stress proles shown previously in Figure 5.2. The Reynolds number in that gure,
Re
= u
a/, is the ratio of the pipe radius to the viscous length scale and varies over
the wide range of 14055,400. An approximately constant-turbulent-shear-stress re-
gion is clear at the highest Reynolds number. As in the channel ows, the peak value
of normalized Reynolds stress increases, and its location, relative to the viscous length
scale, moves away from the wall as the Reynolds number increases.
Peak Location
Sreenivasan (1989) analyzed several different wall-bounded ow experiments.
The distance from the wall, expressed in inner variables, where the streamwise tur-
bulence intensity peaks appears to be independent of Reynolds number (Figure 16
of his article). In contrast, the location where the largest normal uctuations occur
is a strong function of Reynolds number (Figure 17 of his article)
y
+
max
= [Re
]
0.75
(5.27)
where Re
]
0.5
(5.28)
where y
p
is the location of peak Reynolds stress. Note that although probe resolution
has a signicant effect on the magnitude of turbulence intensity, Reynolds stress, or
other higher-order statistics, a relatively long probe should have less effect on the
accuracy of determining the peak location of these quantities. It is therefore not
surprising that Sreenivasan (1989) could use a variety of data sources, including
5.6 HIGHER-ORDER STATISTICS 89
some with insufcient probe resolution, to arrive at the correlations in Eqs. (5.27)
and (5.28).
Equation (5.28) indicates that the location of the peak turbulence stress scales
on the geometric mean of the inner and outer scales. Recall that, because this is the
position in Sreenivasans (1988) model discussed in Section 5.4, where all the mean
vorticity of a turbulent boundary layer has been assumed to be concentrated into
a single sheet, the correlation in Eq. (5.28) and its applicability to the critical-layer
position in transitional ows give some credence to his hypothesis.
Note that if a velocity prole is assumed for the case of fully developed channel
ow, exact expressions for the location of the peak Reynolds stress and turbulence
kinetic energy production can be derived from Eq. (5.24). For example, if the mean
prole is approximately logarithmic in the vicinity of y
p
, the peak Reynolds stress
occurs at
y
+
p
=
Re
0.5
= 1.56 [Re
]
0.5
(5.29)
whereas the peak production occurs at a xed y
+
. Furthermore, the value of the
Reynolds stress at its peak can also be computed from the streamwise momentum
equation (5.24)
[uv]
max
u
2
= 1 2 [ Re
]
0.5
(5.30)
Thus, both the maximum value of the Reynolds stress and the location of its peak
depend directly upon the outer lengthscale a (or ), and the peak location scales with
the geometric mean of the inner and outer scales.
At high Reynolds numbers the peak Reynolds stress occurs substantially outside
the viscous region. Note however that, owing to the shrinking of the inner layer
as the Reynolds number increases, this peak location moves closer to the wall as
a fraction of the boundary-layer thickness. Interestingly, although the most signif-
icant Reynolds-stress-producing activity does not occur at a universal value of y
+
,
the production of turbulence kinetic energy, uv(dU/dy), does always peak at y
+
1215. This implies that, at high Reynolds numbers where the two positions dispart,
the scales producing the Reynolds stress are quite different from those responsible
for the turbulence kinetic energy production. It is this observation that led Townsend
(1961) to hypothesize the existence of an active motion and an inactive motion within
the inner layer. The former is due to the vorticity eld of the inner layer proper and is
responsible for turbulence kinetic energy production. The statistical properties of the
active motion are presumably universal functions of the distance from the wall. The
inactive, larger-scale motion is partly due to the irrotational eld sloshing associated
with the pressure uctuations in the outer layer and partly the large-scale vorticity
eld of the outer-layer turbulence, which the inner layer sees as an unsteady external
stream (see also the substantiative measurements of Bradshaw 1967). The inactive
motion does not scale with inner variables and is characterized by intense velocity
uctuations. The effect of increasing the Reynolds number can then be thought of as
the increasing signicance of the inactive motion (see also Naguib 1992).
The primary conclusion of this and the previous subsubsections is that Reynolds
number does have an effect on the turbulence shear stress even in the inner layer.
Inner scaling fails to collapse the Reynolds stress proles. The peak value of uv
90 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
increases with Reynolds number, and its position moves outward when expressed in
wall units.
Asymptotic Theory
The results discussed in this section thus far indicate that inner scaling fails to
collapse the proles for the Reynolds stress and for the root-mean-square values of the
velocity uctuations. Considerable Reynolds number effects are exhibited even for y
+
values less than 100. Panton (1990a) pointed out that a turbulent wall-bounded ow
is fundamentally a two-layer structure, a classical single perturbation situation. At
nite Reynolds numbers, neither the inner representation nor the outer representation
is a uniformly valid approximation to the true answer in the matching region. As Re
varies, the overlap layer changes size, and the proportions of inner and outer effects
are altered.
A uniformly valid answer for the present singular perturbation problem can be
obtained by forming an additive composite expansion from the inner and outer ex-
pansions. Matching essentially replaces the two lost boundary conditions at y = 0
and y = , and the additive composite expansion is simply the sum of the inner and
outer ones minus the common part (see, for example, Van Dyke 1964). Systematic
changes with Reynolds number considered anomalies when turbulence quantities are
expressed as inner expansions can then be regarded as proper rst-order trends that
are expected when viewed in the proper light. Such treatments were demonstrated
for the mean ow (Panton 1990b), for the rms turbulent uctuations (Panton 1991),
and for the Reynolds stress (Panton 1990a). Root-mean-square values of the veloc-
ity uctuations or Reynolds stress expressed as additive composite expansions are
equivalent in accuracy to the mean velocity expressed as the law of the wall plus the
law of the wake.
For the mean ow, Panton (1990a) suggested the use of an inner velocity scale that
is different fromthe friction velocity (see Eq. (5.7) of this volume), the two being equal
only in the limit of innite Reynolds number. Within the framework of an asymptotic
theory (Yajnik 1970; Afzal 1976; Afzal and Bush 1985), the lowest-order equation
for the mean ow shows weak Reynolds number dependence, whereas that for the
Reynolds stress indicates a much stronger effect. According to Panton (1990a), the
logarithmic nature of the inner, outer, and composite expansions for the mean ow
dictates minimal Reynolds number effects. On the other hand, the Reynolds stress
behaves algebraically, and the innerouter effects are mixed in different proportions
and occur at different locations, resulting in strong Reynolds number dependency
even in the rst-order theory. Moreover, the additive composite expansion for the
Reynolds stress does not evince a constant-stress region; only the inner expansion
does so.
5.7 Coherent Structures
The next question to be discussed in this chapter relates to Reynolds number effects
on the coherent structures in wall-bounded ows. Reference is made to Section 4.4
of the previous chapter. There are several facets to that issue, and the present sec-
tion is divided into four subsections. To be addressed below are proper scaling for
the period between bursts, the possibility of profound structural changes after the
5.7 COHERENT STRUCTURES 91
well-known Reynolds number limit of Re
= 1000
10,000, are shown in Figure 5.9. In Figure 5.9a, outer variables are used to normalize
the bursting frequency (or its inverse, the period between bursts). The nondimen-
sional frequency increases with Reynolds number, thus clearly indicating that outer
scaling is not applicable. On the other hand, the same data plotted in Figure 5.9b
using the viscous time scale to normalize the frequency indicate the validity of in-
ner scaling. Thus, the properly nondimensionalized bursting period is independent
of the Reynolds number in agreement with the observations of Kline et al. (1967),
Corino and Brodkey (1969), Donohue et al. (1972), Achia and Thompson (1977),
and Blackwelder and Eckelmann (1978). Blackwelder and Haritonidis (1983) have
suggested that past erroneous results are caused by insufcient spatial resolution of
the sensors used to detect the bursts.
On the basis of measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer, where the
Reynolds number is several orders of magnitude higher than in typical laboratory
experiments, Narasimha and Kailas (1986, 1987, 1990) still maintain that bursting
events scale on outer variables. To do otherwise, the insufcient time resolution of the
atmospheric data would simply not have allowed the detection of any dynamically
signicant events. Narasimha and Kailas cite other laboratory experiments to support
their position (e.g., Rao, Narasimha, and Badri Narayanan 1971; Ueda and Hinze
1975; Willmarth 1975a; Shah and Antonia 1989; Rajagopalan and Antonia 1984).
Adding to the present confusion, Bandyopadhyay (1982) has shown that the
bursting period is not a universal function and that both inner and outer variables
are involved in its scaling with Re
> 6 10
3
? The Reynolds
number variations of U
+
attributed to Coles (1962), discussed in Section 5.5.3, at
rst suggest that an asymptotic state is reached approximately when Re
> 6 10
3
.
But, the higher-Reynolds-number data beyond that limit show that U
+
drops, al-
though very slowly compared with the rise rate for Re
<6 10
3
. The gradual depar-
ture of U
+
from the apparent low asymptote suggests that some new effects are ap-
pearing in the turbulence production process at approximately Re
>(6 to 15) 10
3
.
Experiments conducted in several different facilities are briey described below, and
they showthat profound changes in the coherent structures of different wall-bounded
ows may indeed take place at very high Reynolds numbers.
Relevant to the issue of structural changes when Re
>6 10
3
is the recent as-
sertion by Kailasnath (1993) that the skin friction, the pressure uctuations, and
the mean-velocity proles all show a distinct change of behavior at about the same
Reynolds number. For example, a power-lawt to existing skin-friction data for both
boundary layers and pipe ows indicates a break point, at Re
> 10 10
3
. This is supported by the ow visualization
results of Head and Bandyopadhyay (1981) at Re
= 17.5 10
3
, which shows that
the outer part of the boundary layer is noticeably sparser: fewer of the hairpin vortices
reach , although more of them are produced per unit (dimensional) wall area.
In high-speed, high-Reynolds-number turbulent boundary layers, the mean loca-
tion of the intermittent layer and its standard deviation change signicantly according
to the results of Owen et al. (1975) at Ma
= 7.0 and Re
= 8510
3
. The intermit-
tency prole for the supersonic boundary layer is clearly fuller. Furthermore, at these
94 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
high Reynolds numbers, the boundary layer structures do not exhibit much over-
turning motion, which is typical of lower Reynolds numbers (see the recent book by
Smits and Dussauge, 1996, for useful information on supersonic shear layers). In the
statistical measurements of conventional boundary-layer properties at high Reynolds
numbers, these changes may not always seem dramatic, but their critical importance
may lie in the efciency of outer-layer or other control devices for drag reduction.
Morrison, Bullock, and Kronaner (1971) compared the sublayer spectra of the
longitudinal velocity uctuations for low- and high-Reynolds-number pipe ows.
Over the sufciently wide range of Reynolds numbers Re
a
=10,000100,000, the
shape of the two-dimensional spectra expressed in wall-layer variables is not uni-
versal. This result contradicts the earlier low-Reynolds-number one- and two-
dimensional spectral observations made by Bakewell and Lumley (1967) and
Morrison (1969). As the Reynolds number is increased, more energy appears in
the low-frequency, low-wave-number region. The additional energy results from dis-
turbances that convect at twice the characteristic velocity of the sublayer of 8u
.
The high Reynolds numbers appear to have the effect of randomizing the phase
velocity whereby the disturbances are no longer phase-correlated in the sublayer.
This additional evidence also suggests much change in the turbulence production
mechanism at very high Reynolds numbers. In fact, Morrison et al. (1971) have
strongly suggested that the low-speed streaks are unique to low-Reynolds-number
wall-bounded ows. Streaks would no longer appear at very high Reynolds numbers
at which a phase-correlated, wavelike turbulence might not exist within the viscous
sublayer.
Using a rake of X-wires and conditional averaging techniques, Antonia et al.
(1990) have examined the effects of Reynolds number on the topology of the large
structures in the range 1360 Re
is increased from
1360 to 9630, the location of the foci moves closer to the wall from 0.83 to 0.78.
This is consistent with the effect of Reynolds number on the mean location of the
intermittent layer for similar values of the shape factor H (Fiedler and Head 1966).
5.7.3 Small Structures in Outer Layer
In this subsection, a relation is developed relating the ratio of outer to inner
scales to Reynolds number changes. The boundary-layer thickness in wall units,
+
,
is related to the Reynolds number Re
+
u
=
u
Re
(5.31)
C
f
2
1
2
Re
(5.32)
5.7 COHERENT STRUCTURES 95
Figure 5.10: Reynolds number dependence of ratio of outer to inner scale. The
straight line is computed from the modied pipe-resistance formula and power-
law mean-velocity prole. Data compiled by Bandyopadhyay (1991) from different
experiments.
For a smooth at plate, an approximate empirical relation can be obtained by using
the modied pipe-resistance formula
C
f
= 0.0296(Re
x
)
1
5
(5.33)
and the 1/7th-power-law velocity prole. The ratio of the outer scale to inner scale
is thus given by
+
= 1.168(Re
)
0.875
(5.34)
Figure 5.10, taken from Bandyopadhyay (1991), shows that Eq. (5.34) describes the
data over the entire Reynolds number range for which measurements are available.
5.7.4 Inner Structures
In this subsection, Reynolds number effects on the inner structures are discussed. It
will be argued that vortex stretching is enhanced at higher Reynolds numbers and that
the low-speed streaks, commonly observed in low-Reynolds number experiments,
may become less important at higher speeds.
Wei and Willmarth (1989) have argued that in turbulent channel-ow literature,
where an inner-layer scaling has been claimed to hold, errors have crept into mea-
surements that are ascribable to large invasive probes and that sometimes small
but systematic variations with Reynolds number have been overlooked because
such a scaling was assumed a priori. Their measurements, discussed previously in
Section 5.6, show that u
rms
/u
turbulence intensity
and the Reynolds shear stress uv/u
2
) than the
characteristic sublayer velocity of 8u
< 6 10
3
). The value of s
+
does not scale with the spanwise mean-streak-spacing
+
z
100. The ndings of
Walsh, Sellers, and McGinley (1989) and Walsh (1990) that the riblet performance
does not change at transonic speeds and high Reynolds numbers (Ma
= 0.7 and
20 10
3
Re
50 10
3
) do not, therefore, invalidate Morrison et al.s (1971)
conclusion that the low-speed streaks will gradually become unimportant at high
Reynolds numbers.
5.8 FLOW CONTROL 97
Grass (1971) investigated the nature of inner and outer interaction in smooth
as well as rough wall-bounded ows. He maintains that the essential features of
this interaction do not change despite the presence of three-dimensional roughness
elements that protrude as much as 80 wall units into the inner layerwell outside
the viscous region. Because low-speed streaks are not observed on walls with three-
dimensional roughness, Grass results minimize the importance of the streaks in the
maintenance of turbulence.
A related issue is the importance of the intense but rare bursting events at high
Reynolds numbers. A partial answer is given by Kailasnath (1993), who used a sta-
tistical approach to obtain useful information on the structure of the instantaneous
momentum ux, thus sidestepping analysis conditioned on specic episodes and fo-
cusing instead on the contribution to the momentum ux associated with various
magnitudes of velocity uctuations. Kailasnaths nonepisodic approach reveals that
the contribution to the ux is dominated by medium amplitude velocity uctuations
in the range of 1.5u
= O[1000].
Extrapolation to eld conditions is not always straightforward though, and it often
comes to grief. Although the riblets results seem to extrapolate favorably to eld
conditions, the verdict on large-eddy breakup devices is disappointing. These points
will be discussed in the following three subsections.
5.8.2 Riblets
Properly optimized, longitudinally grooved surfaces, called riblets, can lead to
a modest skin-friction drag reduction, in the range of 510%, in turbulent bound-
ary layers. The subject dates back to the mid-1960s but has attracted much attention
during the 1970s and 1980s. Walsh (1990) and Pollard (1998) provide up-to-date re-
views. The exact mechanismthrough which riblets achieve net drag reduction despite
the substantial increase in wetted surface area is still controversial. For the present
purpose, however, the issue of Reynolds number effects on riblets performance is
more pertinent. Flight tests and transonic tunnel experiments all indicate that the
inner variables are the proper scaling for the dimensions of the riblets, as discussed
in Section 5.7.4.
Chois (1989) spectrum measurements show that the energy of skin-friction
uctuations in the riblet groove drops by a decade compared with that of the smooth
surface over more than a decade of the ow-frequency range. Typically, over time
expressed in wall units of
+
= 170, the skin friction in the groove can remain below
average and at a quiescent state as if the uid in the groove is partially relaminarized.
The dye ow visualization of Gallagher and Thomas (1984) also shows that the
tracer remained quiescent and viscous-pool-like between the ribs, and it leaves the
groove only when a burst passes overhead. Like Gallagher and Thomas, Narasimha
and Liepmann (1988) have also suggested that the riblets create pools of slowviscous
ow in the valleys and thereby modify the interaction of the wall ow with the outer
ow. Black (1968) has analytically described the dynamics of the mean-velocity
prole of a canonical turbulent boundary layer in terms of a periodic competition
between the wall and outer layers whereby the thickness of the sublayer changes with
phase. The maximum thickness of the sublayer that the outer layer will allow can be
obtained from the extrapolation of the log-law to the sublayer prole. Consider the
equality
U
+
= y
+
= 2.41 ln(y
+
) +5.4 (5.35)
This is satised by y
+
= 11, which is nearly the same as the optimized riblet
height.
In a recent paper, Choi, Moin, and Kim (1993) used direct numerical simulations
to study the turbulent ow over a riblet-mounted surface. Quadrant analysis indi-
cates that drag-reducing riblets mitigate the positive Reynolds-shear-stress-producing
events. Choi et al. suggest that riblets with sufciently small spacing reduce viscous
drag by restricting the location of the streamwise vortices above the wetted surface
such that only a limited area of the riblets is exposed to the downwash of high-
speed uid induced by these vortices (see also the corroborating numerical results of
Kravchenko, Choi, and Moin 1993).
5.8 FLOW CONTROL 99
Once it is accepted that the riblet performance is unrelated to streaks, it comes
as no surprise that sand-grain roughness also has a drag-reducing behavior exactly
like riblets. Tani (1987, 1988) has reanalyzed Nikuradses (1933) experimental data
on sand-grain roughness and has shown that the performance of the roughness also
changes from drag reducing to drag increasing with increasing h
+
, where h is the
characteristic roughness height. The skin friction remains lower than that of the
smooth wall for h
+
<6. Compared with the optimized riblets, the drag reduction is
lower in magnitude but is still of the same order. Tani has also suggested that the
mechanism of drag reduction is likely to originate in the nearly quiescent regions of
the ow within the interstices of the roughness elements, as observable deep within
riblets.
Grass (1971) has shown in a channel ow that the inrush and outrush phases of
the production cycle are also present when the wall has a three-dimensional rough-
ness. Note, however, that walls with three-dimensional roughness elements do not
have smooth, wavelike, low-speed streaks, and although the outer-layer structure is
similar to that in a smooth wall, the near-wall stress ux has a different behavior
(Bandyopadhyay and Watson 1988).
5.8.3 Recovery Response
There are at least two modes of interaction between the inner and outer regions of
a boundary layer. In the rst, the outer structures obtain at least part of their energy
by convection and turbulence transport from the inner region of the upstream part
of the boundary layer. This view is supported by the near-constancy of the ratio
between turbulence stress and twice the turbulence kinetic energy, uv/q
2
, across
a major portion of the boundary layer. This is true even in the wake region (i.e.,
y/ 0.2), where the Reynolds stress and the rms velocity uctuations are rapidly
decreasing. According to Townsend (1976), the turbulent uid in that region has
been sheared sufciently long to attain its equilibrium structure. The second mode of
innerouter interaction involves the pressure effects of the inactive motion. Compared
with the convective mode, the pressure mode is much less extended in the streamwise
direction. In other words, the rst mode points toward long memory, whereas the
second is associated with short memory. This may be relevant to the performance of
different control devices, as discussed in the following two subsubsections.
Disturbances in Outer Layer
The long memory associated with the outer structure dependence on upstream
conditions contrasts with the short memory of the inner region. This was demon-
strated by Clauser (1956), who has shown that in a turbulent boundary layer
at a given Reynolds number disturbances survive much longer in the outer layer
(y/ > 0.2) than in the inner layer. He demonstrated this by placing a circular rod
in the outer and inner regions of a fully developed wall layer. For the rod placed
at y/ = 0.16, the decay of the maximum deviation of the distorted mean-velocity
prole from the equilibrium value was reduced to half of its initial value at a down-
streamdistance of 2. In contrast, the outer-layer rod at y/ = 0.6 caused a distortion
in the velocity prole that lasted four times longer, 8, and that did not completely
disappear even at 16 downstream of the rod (see Figure 13 of Clausers article).
Note that Clauser (1956) compared the response of the inner and outer layers at a
100 REYNOLDS NUMBER EFFECTS
low Reynolds number and did not consider any Reynolds number effects. Inciden-
tally, some consider Clausers demonstration as the predecessor of the modern-day
drag-reducing experiments employing modications to the outer layer (Bushnell and
Hefner 1990).
In viscous drag reduction techniques in which a device drag penalty is involved, as
with outer-layer devices (OLD), a recovery length O[100] is desirable to achieve a net
gain. To date, drag reduction has been achieved only at lowReynolds numbers, Re
<
6 10
3
(Anders 1990a). However, when Anders examined his outer-layer devices
at higher Reynolds numbers, to his surprise, the drag reduction, performance was
reduced, and the device was no longer a viable candidate for viscous drag reduction.
Anders experiments in the range of Reynolds numbers of 2500 Re
18, 000
were conducted by towing a slender, axisymmetric body in a water channel. Two
outer-layer devices were used; the rst consisted of two NACA-0009 airfoil-section
rings placed in tandem 1.5 m downstream of the nose of the 3.7-m-long body. The
second device used consisted of two Clark Y low-Reynolds-number airfoil-section
rings, again placed in tandem. Both devices were optimized to yield lowest skin
friction downstream. Although both devices used by Anders (1990a) consistently led
to lower skin friction at all Reynolds numbers tested, net drag will, of course, be
increased by the device drag penalty. This penalty depends on, among other factors,
the thickness and angle of attack of the device; whether the boundary layer on the
device itself is laminar, transitional, or turbulent; and the presence and extent of
any separation bubble that might form on the outer-layer ribbon or airfoil. Anders
(1990a) reported a very modest net drag reduction for his airfoil devices of around 2%
at the lowest Reynolds number but a net drag increase of 15% at higher Reynolds
numbers.
Bandyopadhyay (1986a) used a large-area drag balance to investigate systemat-
ically the Reynolds number effects on both single- and tandem-ribbon devices. His
Reynolds number range of 1300 Re
(<610
3
) and high
Re
(>6 10
3
), the effectiveness of OLD diminishes with the increase of Reynolds
number.
The continued drop in the skin-friction reduction with Reynolds number comes
as a surprise because the mean ow analysis of Coles (1962) indicates an asymp-
totic state of the outer layer to have been reached above Re
> 6 10
3
. The slow
drop in U
+
does not start until Re
of 14,850. The Reynolds number at the end of the sand roughness (at x = 60 cm)
was Re
. One
normally expects the recovery from wall disturbances to be the quickest (in x) at
the highest Reynolds numbers. Therefore, it comes as a surprise that, to the con-
trary, the return to the apparent equilibrium state (given by the behavior of U
+
in the canonical boundary layer) is clearly slowed down as the reference Reynolds
number is increased and not decreased! Even at the last station, where x = 320 cm
and x/ = 100, the recovery was not yet complete. The recovery length for an
incoming Re
of about 8 10
3
for the near-wall disturbance case is similar to the
outer-layer disturbance case observed in typical OLD at a similar Reynolds number.
This puzzling behavior leads to the question, Why are the near-wall transition-trip
disturbances surviving even beyond an x/ of 100 at such high Reynolds numbers
as 15 10
3
in a way similar to the behavior of outer-layer devices at much lower
Reynolds numbers? This question is clearly important to model testing in wind tun-
nels and code validation data, where roughness is used to trip and thicken the bound-
ary layer to simulate high Reynolds numbers or ight conditions (Bushnell et al.
1993).
5.8.4 Control of High-Reynolds-Number Flows
The preceding discussion indicates that posttransition memory is longer at higher
Reynolds numbers for certain trips. Wall-layer control may, therefore, have a long-
lasting effect, say O[100], if applied during transition. On the other hand, as per
Clauser (1956), if the wall control is applied in the fully developed turbulent region
of the ow, the effect does not last long. The relevance of Reynolds number effects
to ow control is particularly telling in the case of full numerical simulation because
it is currently limited to Reynolds numbers that are not that far from transitional
values.
It is instructive to recall typical Reynolds numbers encountered in the labora-
tory and in the eld. Other than a handful of large-scale facilities, boundary layers
generated in wind tunnels and water tunnels typically have Reynolds numbers of
Re
= 1.510
6
, and in the atmospheric boundary layer the Reynolds number is typ-
ically Re
= 10
6
10
7
. These ranges of Reynolds numbers together with the scopes of
operation of typical wind and water tunnels; direct numerical simulations; and three
large-scale facilities, the National Transonic Tunnel, NASALangley towing tank,
and the super-pipe are schematically shown in Figure 5.1.
It is clear fromthe discussion thus far in this section and fromthe strong Reynolds
number effects on the mean ow, higher-order statistics and coherent structures
demonstrated in Sections 5.55.7 that control devices developed and tested in the
laboratory cannot in general be readily extrapolated to eld conditions. Detailed
knowledge of high-Reynolds-number consequences is required prior to attempting
to control practical wall-bounded ows.
5.9 Summary of Reynolds Number Effects
The classical similarity theory of wall-bounded ows that asserts a universal descrip-
tion for the near-wall ow is found to be increasingly decient as the questions be-
come more detailed. We summarize below the Reynolds number effects on the mean
motion, higher-order statistics and coherent structures. A few items below were not
discussed directly in this chapter but can be found in more detail in the survey by
Gad-el-Hak and Bandyopadhyay (1994).
< 1.5 10
4
. At higher values, it drops,
although at a much slower rate than that in the range of Re
< 6 10
3
.
< 10
3
and weakly above that.
Turbulence measurements with probe lengths greater than the viscous sub-
layer thickness (5 wall units) appear to be unreliable, particularly near the
wall.
Unlike the mean ow, the statistical turbulence quantities do not scale accu-
rately with the wall-layer variables over the entire inner layer. Such scaling
applies over only a very small portion of the inner layer adjacent to the wall.
The distance from the wall where the streamwise turbulence intensity peaks
appears to scale with inner variables.
>6 10
3
, where the mean ow is said to have reached an asymp-
totic state.
In pipe ows, the wave nature of the viscous sublayer, which is observable at
low Reynolds numbers, gives way to a poorly understood random process at
high Reynolds numbers.
Although the variously dened (small) length scales differ greatly from each
other at low Reynolds numbers, they all asymptotically approach the mixing
length at much higher Reynolds numbers (Re
> 10
4
).
The aspect ratioof the hairpin vortices increases with Reynolds number as
they also become skinnier. In a large structure, the number of constituent
hairpin vortices per unit wall area increases with Reynolds number.
.
The inuence of the wall changes from nonlocal to local as this scale ratio
increases.
|
crit
= O[10
3
], but transi-
tion can be delayed by pushing this Re to one or two orders of magnitude higher
values using a variety of active and passive control strategies. This is a fruitful ap-
proach for devices having moderate Re values such as aircraft wings and torpedoes.
But, for the fuselage of a large airplane, the Reynolds number becomes so high down-
streamthat, except for limited regions of the forebody, delaying transition becomes an
exercise in futility, and efforts to control the inevitable turbulent ow are then worth
pursuing. The present chapter emphasizes transition delay strategies for boundary
layers. Methods to advance transition as well as enhance turbulence are discussed in
Chapter 11.
6.2 Routes to Transition
The routes to transition are many, but some are more understood than others. Readers
who work in the eld are surely familiar with the instructive, albeit a bit messy, Map
of the Roads to Wall Turbulence drawn and redrawn during numerous presentations
by Mark Morkovin of the Illinois Institute of Technology. (See Figure 22.11 of the
book by Panton 1996 for a tamed reproduction of at least one version of this map.)
On a semi-innite, smooth at plate placed in a clean, uniform, incompressible,
isothermal ow with as little external disturbances as possible, the laminar ow
106 TRANSITION CONTROL
(somewhat downstream of the leading edge) is in the form of a Blasius prole (Fig-
ure 6.2b) and exists at low enough Reynolds number, typically Re
x
<6 10
4
. This
laminar shear layer is, however, unstable to small perturbations that invariably exist
in any ow. Squires (1933) theorem shows that two-dimensional traveling waves
(TollmienSchlichting [TS] waves) are the most dangerous for incompressible-ow
Figure 6.2: Normal proles in a boundary layer for streamwise velocity (left col-
umn), its derivative with respect to y (central column), and its second derivative
(right column). The proles are less full (more inectional) from top to bottom.
(a) Full prole; (b) Blasius prole; (c) Inectional prole; (d) Prole at the point
of steady, two-dimensional separation; (e) Prole with ow reversal.
6.2 ROUTES TO TRANSITION 107
instability and become unstable when the Reynolds number exceeds a critical value.
However, as soon as the TS waves are amplied, gain a certain amplitude, and non-
linear effects take hold, three-dimensional disturbances can no longer be excluded
(Itoh 1987). Following the linear step, the originally two-dimensional waves inher-
ently acquire a nearly periodic spanwise modulation and three-dimensional structures
evolve as a result of a secondary instability. Hairpin vortices develop, perhaps due
to a tertiary instability, and nally breakdown to turbulence occurs (Klebanoff et al.
1962). Not surprisingly, these nonlinear processes are far less understood than the
linear step. The linear amplication step is, however, the slowest of the successive
multiple steps in the transition process and, hence, factors that affect the linear am-
plication determine the magnitude of the transition Reynolds number.
Reshotko (1976, 1985, 1987) asserted that transition is a consequence of the
nonlinear response of the laminar shear layer (a very complicated oscillator) to ran-
dom forcing disturbances that result from freestream turbulence, radiated sound,
surface roughness, surface vibrations, or combination of these environmental fac-
tors. If the initial disturbances are small, transition Reynolds number depends upon
the nature and spectrum of these disturbances, their signature and excitation of the
normal modes in the boundary layer (receptivity; see, for example, Morkovin 1969;
Goldstein and Hultgren 1989), and the linear amplication of the growing normal
modes. Once wave interaction and nonlinear processes set in, transition is quickly
completed. If the initial disturbance levels are large enough, the relatively slow lin-
ear amplication step mentioned above is bypassed (Morkovin 1984, 1988), and
transition can occur at much lower Reynolds numbers. In fact, a sufciently violent
disturbance, u
rms
/U
2
) U
i
Re
2
2
+
4
) (6.1)
This fourth-order, linear, ordinary differential equation is derived from the Navier
Stokes equation (2.21) of Chapter 2 by assuming a two-dimensional small distur-
bance superimposed upon a steady, unidirectional mean ow, U(y). The streamfunc-
tion for the perturbation is given by
(x, y, t) = (y)e
i (xct)
(6.2)
In Eqs. (6.1) and (6.2), c is the wave speed, is the amplitude function of the uctu-
ations, the superscript
denotes derivative with respect to y, is the wave number, i
is the imaginary number (i =
2
) U
i
Re
[(
2
2
+
4
)
+ 2
) +
+
2
)] (6.3)
where (y) is the uid viscosity nondimensionalized using the freestream value, and
Re is dened using the freestream viscosity. This is the governing equation for study-
ing the stability of, for example, wall-bounded ows with surface heating or cooling.
6.3.1 Critical Re and Transition
The Reynolds number below which (linear) perturbations of all wave numbers
decay is termed the critical Reynolds number, Re
crit
, or the limit of stability. For a
given velocity prole U(y), the critical Reynolds number and the rate of growth of
perturbations depend strongly on the shape of the velocity prole. A prole with an
inectional point (
2
U/y
2
= 0) above the wall provides a necessary and sufcient
condition for inviscid instability (Rayleigh 1880; Tollmien 1935). Such proles must
have a positive curvature at y = 0 because
2
U/y
2
is negative at a large distance
from the wall (Figure 6.2). Even when viscous effects are included (right-hand side
of the OrrSommerfeld equation = 0), a velocity prole becomes more stable as
its second derivative near the wall becomes negative, [
2
U/y
2
]
o
< 0. The prole
is then said to be more full (Figure 6.2a), having a smaller ratio of displacement
thickness to momentum thickness than, for example, an inectional velocity prole
(Figure 6.2ce). In the former case, the critical Reynolds number is increased, the
range of amplied frequencies is diminished, and the amplication rate of unstable
waves is reduced.
In a spatially growing boundary layer, transition to turbulence involves the inte-
grated effect of the growth of unstable waves as they are convected downstream by
the mean ow. If | A| represents the amplitude of a wave, then its local spatial growth
110 TRANSITION CONTROL
is given by
d| A|
dx
=
i
| A| (6.4)
The net growth of a wave with a given real frequency, from the location x
o
, where it
rst becomes unstable, to the location x
oo
, where transition to turbulence occurs, is
given by
ln
| A|
| A
o
|
x
oo
x
o
i
dx = n (6.5)
Empirically, a modal amplication n of between 8 and 11 is found at transition to
turbulence (e.g., Smith and Gamberoni 1956; Van Ingen 1956; Jaffe, Okamura, and
Smith 1970).
Despite the apparent success of the amplitude-ratio method to predict transition,
Reshotko (1976) maintained that the method is defective in principle and perhaps
also in practice. Transition location depends strongly on the freestream turbulence
levels and other environmental factors. Moreover, nonlinear effects that are physi-
cally signicant in the transition process cannot be accounted for by procedures based
on linear stability theory. In general, the e
n
-method works fairly well for situations
in which the freestream turbulence level is below 1% (e.g., cruising aircraft), but the
strategy fails for noisy environments (e.g., turbine blades). Transition processes dom-
inated by TS instabilities can accurately be predicted using the e
n
-method, whereas
transition caused by crossow instabilities and the like cannot be forecast. Notwith-
standing these drawbacks, the e
n
-rule provides a practical scheme for estimating the
effectiveness of a transition-delay method of control (Bushnell and McGinley 1989;
Bushnell 1989).
6.4 Stability Modiers
Stability modiers are those methods of laminar ow control that alter the shape of
the velocity prole to minimize the linear growth of unstable waves. For a boundary
layer ow along a nonmoving wall
1
of small curvature, the three momentum equa-
tions at the surface were listed in Chapter 2. Herein, we allow both streamwise and
normal motions of the wall, and the instantaneous streamwise momentum equation
at y = 0 reads
w
u
t
y=0
+
w
u
w
u
x
y=0
+
w
v
w
u
y
y=0
+
p
x
y=0
y=0
u
y
y=0
=
2
u
y
2
y=0
(6.6)
Equation (6.6) is valid for a uid with variable properties and . For a two-
dimensional laminar boundary layer, vorticity is only in the spanwise direction and
is given by
z
= u/y. The right-hand side of Eq. (6.6), therefore, represents the
1
Wall was not allowed to move in the streamwise or spanwise directions. Normal wall motions are
analogous to wall transpiration, v
w
, and were, therefore, included in Eqs. (2.39)(2.41).
6.4 STABILITY MODIFIERS 111
ux of vorticity at the surface, as demonstrated by Lighthill (1963a). Any of the
terms on the left-hand side of Eq. (6.6) can affect the sign of the second derivative of
the velocity prole (or the direction of the vorticity ux) at the wall and, hence, both
the ow stability and its resistance to separation. Stability modiers do just that and
include wall motion such that the rst, second, or third term on the left-hand side of
Eq. (6.6) is negative, wall suction (v
w
< 0), favorable pressure gradient (p/x < 0),
or lower wall viscosity (/y > 0). Any one or a combination of these methods
will cause the curvature of the velocity prole at the wall to become more negative
and, hence, increase the lower critical Reynolds number and reduce the spatial or the
temporal amplication rates of unstable waves. Curvature effects and body forces
were not included in Eq. (6.6) but can also be very effective in advancing or delaying
transition. A discussion of Lorentz forces
2
is deferred to Chapter 14.
For historical reasons, boundary layers, which are stabilized by extending the
region of favorable pressure gradient, are known as natural laminar ow (NLF),
whereas other methods to modify the stability of a shear ow are termed laminar
ow control (LFC). It is clear from Eq. (6.6) that the effects of all those strategies are
additive. The term hybrid laminar ow control normally refers to the combination
of NLF and one of the LFC techniques. The recent review article by Joslin (1998)
discusses NLF and LFC specically as applied to aircraft.
The most common method to lower the viscosity near the surface is to heat the wall
for liquids (d/dT < 0) or to cool it for gases (d/dT > 0). Other strategies to effect
a near-wall viscosity gradient include surface-lm boiling, cavitation, sublimation,
chemical reaction, wall injection of lower or higher viscosity uid, and the presence
of shear thinning or thickening additive. The following four subsections describe in
turn the four stability modiers to delay the transition of a boundary layer: wall
motion, suction, shaping, and wall heating or cooling.
6.4.1 Wall Motion
Wall motion can be generated by either actively driving the surface or by using a
exible coating whose modulus of rigidity is low enough so that surface waves are
generated under the inuence of the stress eld in the uid. In the former case, the
wall motion is precisely controlled and can be made to affect the shape of the velocity
prole in a desired manner. For example, a transverse or longitudinal wave can be
forced to propagate on the surface of the solid and thus modulate the instantaneous
values of the rst three terms on the left-hand side of Eq. (6.6). This method of control
is, however, quite impractical and is used mainly to provide controlled experiments to
determine what type of wave motion is required to achieve a given result. The more
practical passive exible walls can be broadly classied into two categories: truly
compliant coatings that have extremely small damping and modulus of elasticity
and can therefore respond with little phase lag to the boundary layer ow, and the
more readily available resonant walls in which vibration modes in the solid, acting
as an active vibration damper, are excited by the ow-disturbance forcing function
(Bushnell, Hefner, and Ash 1977). The owstabilization in this case may be a result of
altering the phase relation between the instantaneous streamwise and normal velocity
components (i.e., the Reynolds stress uv) in the viscous region rather than changing
the curvature of the mean velocity prole at the wall.
2
Body forces that result when a conducting uid moves in the presence of a magnetic eld.
112 TRANSITION CONTROL
Theoretical studies of boundary-layer stability in the presence of a exible wall
started in the early 1960s, stimulated in part by the pioneering experimental work
of Kramer (1960a). In both the classical work (e.g., Benjamin 1960a, Landahl 1962;
Kaplan 1964) and the more recent research (e.g., Carpenter and Garrad 1985; Willis
1986; Yeo and Dowling 1987), steady-state stability theory has been used with an as-
sumed velocity prole that is not allowed to change as the wall moves. It is clear, how-
ever, that the wall displacement will induce a traveling pressure signal that, in turn,
will modulate the mean velocity prole. Either a quasi-steady stability analysis of the
modulated ow or true time-dependent calculations would be preferable to conven-
tional linear-stability theory, but neither has been attempted yet owing to the obvious
complexities of the problem. Notwithstanding the shortcoming of present stability
calculations, Willis (1986) obtained a very impressive agreement between linear the-
ory and a carefully conducted experiment. Eigenvalue calculations were performed to
predict the amplication factors for a range of modal frequencies. The exible coating
was a silicon-rubber and silicon-oil mix covered by a thin latex rubber skin stretched
across the surface. The experiments were conducted in a water towing tank using a at
plate, and controlled, harmonic, two-dimensional disturbances were introduced up-
streamof the compliant surface. A reduction of the wave growth by an order of mag-
nitude is feasible when this rather simple coating is used, almost eliminating transition
due to TollmienSchlichting type of instability. The exible wall itself is, however,
susceptible to other kinds of instability, and care must be taken to ensure that these
surface waves will not grow to an amplitude that will promote transition through a
roughness-like effect (see the reviewarticle by Riley, Gad-el-Hak, and Metcalfe 1988).
Although the original Kramers (1960a) experiments were discredited up until a
few years ago, more recent theoretical and experimental evidence conrms Kramers
results (Carpenter and Garrad 1985). Passive exible coatings with density the order
of the uid density appear to be capable of considerable transition postponement. All
of Chapter 7 is devoted to this simple control method that does not require energy
expenditure, slots, ducts, or internal equipment of any kind.
6.4.2 Suction
A second method for postponing transition is the application of wall suction. As
seen from Eq. (6.6), small amounts of uid withdrawn from the near-wall region of
the boundary layer change the curvature of the velocity prole at the wall and can
dramatically alter the stability characteristics of the boundary layer. Additionally,
suction inhibits the growth of the boundary layer, and thus the critical Reynolds
number based on thickness may never be reached.
Although laminar ow can be maintained to extremely high Reynolds numbers
provided that enough uid is sucked away, the goal is to accomplish transition delay
with the minimum suction ow rate. Not only will this reduce the power necessary
to drive the suction pump but also the momentum loss due to suction; hence, the
skin friction, is minimized. This latter point can easily be seen from the momentum
integral equation. If one rewrites the K arm an integral equation (2.44) for a steady,
incompressible ow ( =
o
= constant) over a at plate
dU
o
/dx = 0; dR/dx = 0
dx
+
|v
w
|
U
o
(6.7)
6.4 STABILITY MODIFIERS 113
The second term on the right-hand side is the suction coefcient, C
q
, and although
withdrawing the uid through the wall leads to a decrease in the rate of growth of the
momentum thickness, C
f
increases directly with C
q
. Fluid withdrawn through the
wall has to come from outside the boundary layer where the streamwise momentum
per unit mass is at the relatively high level of U
1 exp
|v
w
| y
(6.8)
The displacement thickness has the constant value
= /|v
w
|, where is the kine-
matic viscosity and |v
w
| is the absolute value of the normal velocity at the wall. In
this case, Eq. (6.7) reads
C
f
= 2C
q
(6.9)
Bussmann and M unz (1942) computed the critical Reynolds number for the preceding
asymptotic velocity prole to be Re
|
crit
U
>1.4 10
5
.
The amplication rate of unstable disturbances for the asymptotic prole is an order
of magnitude less than that for the Blasius boundary layer (Pretsch 1942). This
treatment ignores the development distance fromthe leading edge needed to reach the
114 TRANSITION CONTROL
asymptotic state. When this is included in the computation, a higher C
q
(1.18 10
4
)
is required to ensure stability (Iglisch 1944; Ulrich 1944). Wuest (1961) presented a
summary of transpiration boundary layer computations up to the early 1960s.
The more complicated analysis for the stability of a boundary layer with suc-
tion through discrete spanwise strips was only carried out satisfactorily relatively
recently. Reed and Nayfeh (1986) conducted a numerical-perturbation analysis of
a linearized, triple-deck, closed-form basic state of a at plate boundary layer with
suction through a nite number of spanwise porous strips. Their results were com-
pared with interacting boundary-layer calculations (Ragab and Nayfeh 1980) as well
as with the carefully conducted experiments of Reynolds and Saric (1986). Suction
applied through discrete strips can be as effective as suction applied continuously
over a much longer streamwise length. Reed and Nayfeh (1986) suggested a scheme
for optimizing the strip conguration. Their results showed that suction should be
concentrated nearer the leading edge (branch I of the neutral stability curve) when
disturbances are still small in amplitude.
Suction may be applied through porous surfaces, perforated plates, or carefully
machined slots. It is of course structurally impossible to make the whole surface of
an aircraft wing or the like out of porous material, and often strips of sintered bronze
or steel are used. A relatively inexpensive woven stainless steel, Dynapore, is now
available and provides some structural support (Reynolds and Saric 1986). Superior
surface smoothness and rigidity are obtained by drilling microholes in titaniumusing
the recently developed electron-beam technology. The lower requirement for a pres-
sure drop in the case of a perforated plate translates directly into pumping-power
saving. However, outowproblems may result fromregions of the wing having strong
pressure gradients (Saric and Reed 1986). Outow in the aft region of a suction strip
can cause large destabilizing effects and local three-dimensionality.
Although structurally a surface with multiple slits is more rigid than a porous
surface, slots are more expensive to fabricate accurately. Moreover, the higher mass-
ow rates associated with them may result in high-Reynolds-number instabilities
such as separation and backow, which adversely affect the stability of the basic
ow. The rule of thumb is that the Reynolds number, based on slot width (or hole
diameter in the case of a perforated plate) and the local suction velocity, should be
kept below 10 to avoid adverse effects on the boundary-layer stability. Nevertheless,
Saric and Reed (1986) claimed a hole Reynolds number an order of magnitude higher
than that without destabilization of the basic ow.
Delaying transition using suction is a mature technology, in which most of the
remaining problems are in the maintainability and reliability of suction surfaces and
the optimization of suction rate and distribution. To protect the delicate suction
surfaces on the wing of an aircraft from insect impacts and ice formation at low
altitudes, special leading edge systems are used (Wagner and Fischer 1984; Wagner
et al. 1984, 1988, 1990). Suction is less suited for underwater vehicles because of the
abundance of suspended ocean particulate that can clog the suction surface as well
as destabilize the boundary layer.
6.4.3 Shaping
The third method of control to delay laminar-to-turbulence transition is perhaps
the simplest and involves the use of suitably shaped bodies to manipulate the pres-
sure distribution. In Eq. (6.6), the pressure gradient term can affect the sign of the
6.4 STABILITY MODIFIERS 115
curvature of the velocity prole at the wall and, hence, change the stability character-
istics of the boundary layer. According to the calculations of Schlichting and Ulrich
(1940), the critical Reynolds number based on displacement thickness and freestream
velocity changes from about 100 to 10,000 as a suitably nondimensionalized pres-
sure gradient varies from = 6 (adverse) to = +6 (favorable). The Pohlhausen
parameter, , is the ratio of pressure forces to viscous forces and is given by
dp
dx
2
U
o
=
2
dU
o
dx
(6.10)
where is the boundary layer thickness, U
o
is the velocity outside the boundary layer,
is the kinematic viscosity, is the dynamic viscosity, and dp/dx is the pressure
gradient.
For the case of a favorable pressure gradient, no unstable waves exist at innite
Reynolds number. In contrast, the upper branch of the neutral stability curve in the
case of an adverse pressure distribution tends to a nonzero asymptote so that a nite
region of wavelengths at which disturbances are always amplied remains even as
Re .
Streamlining a body to prevent separation and reduce form drag is quite an old
art going back to prehistoric times, as indicated in Chapter 1, but the stabilization
of a boundary layer by pushing the longitudinal location of the pressure minimum
as far back as possible dates to the 1930s and led to the successful development
of the NACA 6-Series NLF airfoils. Newer, low-Reynolds-number lifting surfaces
used in sailplanes, low-speed drones, and executive business jets have their maxi-
mum thickness point far aft of the leading edge. The recent success of the Voyagers
9-day, unrefueled ight around the world was due in part to a wing design employing
natural laminar ow to approximately 50% chord. Application of NLF technology
to underwater vehicles is feasible but somewhat more limited (Granville 1979).
For a lifting surface, the favorable pressure gradient extends to the longitudinal
location of the pressure minimum. Beyond this point, the adverse pressure gradient
becomes steeper and steeper as the peak suction is moved farther aft. For an airfoil, the
desired shift in the point of minimumpressure can only be attained in a certain narrow
range of angles of incidence. Depending on the shape, angle of attack, Reynolds
number, surface roughness, and other factors, the boundary layer either becomes
turbulent shortly after the point of minimum pressure or separates rst and then
undergoes transition. One of the design goals of NLF is to maintain attached ow
in the adverse pressure gradient region, and some method of separation control
(Chapter 8) may have to be used there.
Factors that limit the utility of NLF include crossow instabilities and leading
edge contamination on swept wings, insect and other particulate debris, high unit
Reynolds numbers at lower cruise altitudes, and performance degradation at higher
angles of attack due to the necessarily small leading edge radius of NLF airfoils.
Reductions of surface waviness and smoothness of modern production wings, spe-
cial leading edge systems to prevent insect impacts and ice formation, higher cruise
altitudes of newer airplanes, and higher Mach numbers all favor the application of
NLF (Runyan and Steers 1980). To paraphrase an older statement by Holmes (1988),
an NLF airfoil is no longer as nicky as Morris the cat. It is true that a boundary
layer that is kept laminar to extremely high Reynolds numbers is very sensitive to
116 TRANSITION CONTROL
environmental factors such as roughness, freestreamturbulence, radiated sound, and
so forth. However, the ow is durable and reliable within certain conservative design
corridors that must be maintained by the skillful designer and eventual operator of
the vehicle. Current research concentrates on understanding the achievability and
maintainability of natural laminar ow, expanding the practical applications of NLF
technology, and extending the design methodology to supersonic aviation (Bushnell
and Malik 1988; Bushnell 1989; Joslin 1998; Becker, Durst, and Lienhart 1999).
6.4.4 Wall Heating and Cooling
The last of the stability modiers to be considered in this chapter is the addition
or removal of heat from a surface, which causes the viscosity to vary with distance
from the wall. In general, viscosity increases with temperature for gases, whereas
the opposite is true for liquids. Thus, if heat is removed from the surface of a body
moving in air, the fth term on the left-hand side of Eq. (6.6) is negative. In that case,
the velocity gradient near the wall increases and the velocity prole becomes fuller
and more stable. The term containing the viscosity derivative will also be negative if
the surface of a body moving in water is heated. With heating in water or cooling in
air, the critical Reynolds number is increased, the range of amplied frequencies is
diminished, and the amplication rate of unstable waves is reduced. Substantial delay
of transition is feasible with a surface that is only a few degrees hotter (in water) or
colder (in air) than the freestream. Note that for gases in particular, surface cooling
affects both viscosity and density. The increased near-wall density has additional
benecial effects via the stable buoyancy (for certain orientations) and enhanced
near-wall momentum it induces.
The rst indirect evidence of this phenomenon was the observation that the drag
of a at plate placed in a wind tunnel increases by a large amount when the plate
is heated (Linke 1942). Both Frick and McCullough (1942) and Liepmann and Fila
(1947) showed that the transition location of a at-plate boundary layer in air at
low subsonic speeds is moved forward as a result of surface heating. The stability
calculations of Lees (1947) conrmed these experiments and, moreover, showed that
cooling has the expected opposite effects. The critical Reynolds number based on
distance from the leading edge increases from 10
5
to 10
7
when the wall of a at plate
placed in an air stream is cooled to 70% of the absolute ambient temperature. Even
a modest cooling of the wall to 0.95T
C in water
has approximately the same effect on the curvature of the velocity prole at the wall
as a surface cooling of 20
C
were conrmed by the experiments of Strazisar, Reshotko, and Prahl (1977), who
measured the growth rates of small disturbances generated by a vibrating ribbon in
a heated at plate in water. These experiments did not yield data on transition or on
stability at higher overheats.
The transition predictions of Wazzan et al. (1968, 1970) at higher overheats were
partially conrmed by the very carefully conducted experiments of Barker and Gile
(1981), who used the entrance region of an electrically heated pipe. The displace-
ment thickness was much smaller than the pipe radius and, thus, the boundary-layer
development was approximately the same as that of a zero-pressure gradient at
plate. Barker and Gile reported a transition Reynolds number of 4.710
7
for a
wall overheat of 8
C rise in temperature. For room temperature air, Pr 0.7, and absolute viscosity is decreased
by approximately 0.2% for each 1
C drop in temperature.
118 TRANSITION CONTROL
system can be used to increase the surface temperature along the body length. The
detrimental effects of freestream particulate alluded to earlier are, however, a ma-
jor obstacle at present for a practical implementation of this method of control.
Suspended particulate having wide-band concentration spectra are abundant in the
oceans, and particle-defense mechanisms must be sought before using any of the
transition-delay methods in a contaminated environment.
In addition to surface heating, several other techniques are available to lower the
near-wall viscosity (/y > 0) in a liquid boundary layer and thus favorably affect
the stability of the ow. These include, as mentioned earlier, lm boiling, cavitation,
sublimation, chemical reaction, or wall injection of a gas or lower-viscosity liquid.
Finally, a shear-thinning additive can be introduced into the boundary layer. Because
the shear increases as the wall is approached, the effective viscosity of the non-
Newtonian uid decreases there, and (/y) becomes positive.
6.5 Wave Cancellation
An alternative approach to the four stability modiers used for increasing the tran-
sition Reynolds number of a laminar boundary layer is wave cancellation. If the
frequency, orientation, and phase angle of the dominant element of the spectrum of
growing linear disturbances in the boundary layer are detected, a control system and
appropriately located disturbance generators may then be used to effect a desired
cancellation or suppression of the detected disturbances. In this case, the stability
characteristics of the boundary layer are exploited but not altered (Reshotko 1985).
Wave cancellation is feasible only when the disturbances are still relatively small,
their growth is governed by a linear equation, and the principle of superposition is
still valid.
The rst reported use of wave cancellation is that due to Schilz (1965, 1966).
He used a vibrating ribbon to excite a TS wave on a test plate that had a exible
surface. A unique wall-motion device ush mounted into the plate moved the exible
wall in a transverse, wavelike manner with a variety of frequencies and phase speeds.
A signicant amount of cancellation resulted when the exible wall motion had the
opposite phase but the same frequency and phase speed as the TS wave. Both Milling
(1981) and Thomas (1983) used two vibrating wires, one downstreamof the other, to
generate and later cancel a single frequency TS wave. Thomas (1983) observed that
interaction between the primary disturbance and background excitations prevented
complete cancellation of the primary wave. To further study the consequences of
wave interactions, Thomas applied the same method of control to eliminate two
interacting waves of different frequency. Although the primary waves were behaving
linearly, a nonlinear interaction gave rise to a low-amplitude difference frequency
that could only be partially reduced and ultimately led to transition. Thomas (1983)
concluded that it is not possible to return the ow completely to its undisturbed base
state because of wave interactions and that it is perhaps more appropriate to describe
this control method as wave superposition rather than wave cancellation.
The same principle of wave superposition can be applied using wall heating
and cooling (Liepmann et al. 1982; Liepmann and Nosenchuck 1982; Ladd and
Hendricks 1988), plate vibration (Gedney 1983), compliant wall (McMurray,
Metcalfe, and Riley 1983), or periodic suction and blowing (Biringen 1984).
6.5 WAVE CANCELLATION 119
Figure 6.3: Cancellation of articial instability waves using adaptive heat
[after Ladd and Hendricks 1988].
Liepmann and Nosenchuck (1982) used ush-mounted hot-lm probes to sense nat-
ural TS waves in a at-plate boundary layer in a water tunnel. A feed-forward
control loop was then used to synthesize and introduce disturbances of equal am-
plitude but of opposite phase via ush-mounted wall heaters. Ladd and Hendricks
(1988) performed their experiment in a water tunnel on a 9:1 neness-ratio ellipsoid.
Strip heaters were again used to create and actively attenuate TS waves. Ladd and
Hendricks applied digital ltering techniques to synthesize the attenuation signal.
The lter was able to adapt the attenuation signal actively to changes in amplitude
and frequency of the articially introduced instability wave with no loss in attenua-
tion downstream. A sample of Ladd and Hendricks results is depicted in Figure 6.3.
Time records of a ush-mounted hot-lm probe are shown for the natural ow, for
the articially introduced TS wave using a heating ring, and for the successfully
canceled wave using a second downstream heating ring.
The transition delay achieved by active wave cancellation is modest (typically a
factor of two or less increase in the transition Reynolds number based on distance
from the leading edge). Reshotko (1985) maintained that to achieve signicant delay
in transition using this technique would require an extensive array of disturbance de-
tectors and generators as well as prohibitively complicated control system that could
cancel both the primary and residual disturbance spectra. Signicant delay in transi-
tion is more readily achieved via the stability modiers summarized in Section 6.4.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Compliant Coatings
There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire
to see it take place too quickly.
(George Christoph Lichtenberg, 17421799)
There is a river in the ocean: in the severest droughts it never fails, and in
the mightiest oods it never overows; its banks and its bottom are of
cold water, while its current is of warm; the Gulf of Mexico is its fountain,
and its mouth is the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf stream. There is in the
world no other such majestic ow of waters.
(Matthew Fontaine Maury, 18061873)
PROLOGUE
Boundary layer manipulation via reactive control strategies is now in vogue. The
payoffs are handsome, but the difculties involved are daunting. This topic is de-
ferred to the last chapter of the book. There are, however, much simpler alternatives
to such sophisticated ow alteration devices, and the present chapter discusses one
such alternative: passive compliant walls. We particularly reviewthe important devel-
opments in the eld of compliant coatings that took place during the past decade or
so. During this period, progress in theoretical and computational methods somewhat
outpaced that in experimental efforts. There is no doubt that compliant coatings can
be rationally designed to delay transition and to suppress noise on marine vehicles
as well as other practical hydrodynamic devices. Transition Reynolds numbers that
exceed by an order of magnitude those on rigid-surface boundary layers can read-
ily be achieved. Recent theoretical work indicates that transition to turbulence can
be delayed indenitely, at least in principle, provided that optimized multiple-panel
compliant walls are used. There is renewed experimental evidence of favorable in-
teractions of compliant coatings even for air ows and even for turbulent boundary
layers, but more research is needed to conrm these latest results.
7.1 Introduction
A compliant wall, as opposed to a rigid one, offers the potential for favorable inter-
ference with a wall-bounded ow. Laminar-to-turbulence transition may be delayed
120
7.1 INTRODUCTION 121
or advanced, boundary layer separation may be prevented or triggered, ow-induced
noise may be modulated, and skin-friction drag in both laminar and turbulent ows
may be altered. The challenge is of course to nd a coating with the right physical
properties to achieve a desired goal.
Passive compliant coatings were around long before reactive ow control was
even contemplated. For better or worse, hydrodynamically speaking, the epidermis
of most nekton is pliable at their typical swimming speeds. For close to half a cen-
tury the science and technology of compliant coatings has fascinated, frustrated,
and occasionally gratied Homo sapiens searching for methods to delay laminar-to-
turbulence transition, to reduce skin-friction drag in turbulent wall-bounded ows,
to quell vibrations, and to suppress ow-induced noise. Compliant coatings offer a
rather simple method to delay laminar-to-turbulence transition as well as to interact
favorably with a turbulent wall-bounded ow. In its simplest form, the technique is
passive, relatively easy to apply to an existing vehicle or device, and perhaps not too
expensive. Unlike other drag-reducing techniques such as suction, injection, poly-
mer or particle additives, passive compliant coatings do not require slots, ducts, or
internal equipment of any kind. Aside from reducing drag, other reasons for the
perennial interest in studying compliant coatings are their many other useful ap-
plications, for example, as sound-absorbent materials in noisy ow-carrying ducts
in aero-engines and as exible surfaces to coat naval vessels for the purposes of
shielding their sonar arrays from the sound generated by the boundary-layer pres-
sure uctuations and of reducing the efciency of their vibrating metal hulls as sound
radiators.
The original interest in the eld was spurred by the experiments of Kramer
(1957), who demonstrated a compliant coating design based on dolphins epider-
mis and claimed substantial transition delay and drag reduction in hydrodynamic
ows. Those experiments were conducted in the seemingly less-than-ideal environ-
ment of Long Beach Harbor, California. Subsequent laboratory attempts to sub-
stantiate Kramers results failed, and the initial interest in the idea zzled. A similar
bout of excitement and frustration that dealt mostly with the reduction of skin-
friction drag in turbulent ows for aeronautical applications followed. Those results
were summarized in the comprehensive review by Bushnell et al. (1977). During the
early 1980s, interest in the subject was rejuvenated mostly as the result of modest
investment in resources by the Ofce of Naval Research in the United States and
the Procurement Executive of the Ministry of Defence in Great Britain.
1
Signi-
cant advances were made during this period in numerical and analytical methods to
solve the coupled uid-structure problem. New experimental tools were developed
to measure the minute yet important surface deformation caused by the unsteady
uid forces. Coherent structures in turbulent wall-bounded ows were routinely
identied, and their modulation by the surface compliance could readily be quanti-
ed.
Careful analyses by Carpenter and Garrad (1985) and Willis (1986) as well
as the well-controlled experiments reported by Daniel, Gaster, and Willis (1987)
1
Through all the ups and downs in the West, compliant coating research continued at more or less steady
pace in the former Soviet Union, but open-literature publications resulting from this work, either in
English or in Russian, are rather scarce. For some valuable references, see, for example, the books by
Aleyev (1977), and Choi (1991), and the article by Carpenter and Garrad (1985).
122 COMPLIANT COATINGS
and Gaster (1988)
2
have, for the rst time, provided direct conrmation of the
transition-delaying potential of compliant coatings, convincingly made a case for
the validity of Kramers original claims, and offered a plausible explanation for the
failure of the subsequent laboratory experiments. There is little doubt now that com-
pliant coatings can be rationally designed to delay transition and to suppress noise
on marine vehicles and other practical hydrodynamic devices. Transition Reynolds
numbers that exceed by an order of magnitude those on rigid-surface boundary
layers can readily be achieved. Although the number of active researchers in the
eld continues to dwindle, new and promising results are being produced. Recent
theoretical work by Davies and Carpenter (1997a) and Carpenter (1998) indicates
that transition to turbulence can be delayed indenitely, at least in principle, provided
that optimized multiple-panel compliant walls are used and that the freestream is a
low-disturbance environment. There is also recent evidence of favorable interactions
of compliant coatings even for air ows (Lee, Fisher, and Schwarz 1995) and even
for turbulent boundary layers (Lee, Fisher, and Schwarz 1993a; Choi et al. 1997).
This chapter emphasizes the signicant compliant coating research that took place
during the last 1015 years and suggests avenues for future research. The reader is
referred to prior reviews for more classical work on the subject such as those by
Bushnell et al. (1977), Gad-el-Hak (1986a, 1987a), Riley et al. (1988), Carpenter
(1990), and Metcalfe (1994). Following these introductory remarks, a somewhat
sketchy history of the subject, particularly prior to 1985, is recalled. This will help
place more recent developments in proper perspective.
7.2 Compliant Coatings prior to 1985
Before embarking on describing the recent accomplishments in the eld of compliant
coatings, we rst elaborate on its history before 1985. This seemingly arbitrary date
is chosen because it demarks the time after which tools for rationally designing a
compliant coating to delay transition became more readily available. The victories
and defeats of the subject matter will become clear through the discussion that fol-
lows. The idea of using compliant coatings for drag reduction motivated much of
the earlier work in this area and was rst introduced by Kramer (1957) based on his
earlier observation, while crossing the Atlantic ocean in 1946, of dolphins swimming
in water. He advanced the concept that the stability and transition characteristics of
a boundary layer may be inuenced by coupling it hydroelastically to a compliant
coating. In his pioneering paper and several subsequent publications, Kramer (1960a,
b,c; 1961; 1962; 1965; 1969) reported substantial drag reduction for towed under-
water bodies covered with compliant coating modeled after the dolphin skin. He
hypothesized that by tuning the elastic wall damping to a frequency near that of the
most unstable TollmienSchlichting wave, it would be possible to dissipate partially
the instability waves, thus delaying the transition to turbulence. Kramers tests were
performed by towing a test model behind a motor boat in Long Beach Harbor. Unfor-
tunately, many attempts by other investigators to repeat Kramers experiments under
more controlled conditions failed to yield similar conclusions (e.g., Puryears 1962
2
Originally reported in the thesis by Willis (1986) and later contrasted to theory in the paper by Lucey
and Carpenter (1995).
7.2 COMPLIANT COATINGS PRIOR TO 1985 123
experiment in a towing tank). This so-called Kramer controversy will be revisited in
Section 7.5.
Theoretical work by Benjamin (1960a,b), Betchov (1960), Landahl (1962), and
Kaplan (1964) indicated that drag reduction by delaying transition is possible.
However, the theoretically predicted successful coatings had specic characteristics
that would be extremely difcult to match in practice. It is important to stress that
almost all this early work addressed the delay of transition and ignored the potential
for reducing turbulence skin friction with compliant coatings.
During the mid-1960s, Benjamin (1966) explored the possibility that a compliant
coating may affect the skin-friction drag in a fully developed turbulent boundary
layer without necessarily delaying transition. Dinkelacker (1966) conducted careful
tests of a compliant surface in a water-pipe ow. He systematically attempted to
determine the repeatability of rigid-tube data, the inuence of small steps in the tube
wall, and the possible occurrence of organ-pipe acoustic modes. Dinkelackers results
seemed to indicate a modest reduction in drag by using a compliant wall.
Blick and his coworkers at the University of Oklahoma experimentally demon-
strated signicant reductions in turbulence skin friction for compliant surfaces in
air (Fisher and Blick 1966; Looney and Blick 1966; Smith and Blick 1966; Blick and
Walters 1968; Chu and Blick 1969). Subsequent tests by Lissaman and Harris (1969),
who attempted to substantiate Blicks conclusions, yielded only extremely modest
gains. In another study, McMichael, Klebanoff, and Meese (1980) demonstrated that
the apparent reduction in turbulence skin friction in the University of Oklahomas
experiments could be a consequence of experimental deciencies coupled with the im-
proper interpretation of data. McMichael et al. (1980) concluded that drag reduction
via compliant coating in gaseous ows would not be as successful as in liquids.
During the 1970s various compliant materials were tested in water at the Naval
Ocean Systems Center, the Naval Research Laboratory, the Naval Undersea Systems
Center, and the Advanced Technology Center of the LTV Corporation, all in the
United States. In no case was a statistically signicant reduction in drag measured.
Fischer and Ash (1974) presented a general review of concepts for reducing skin fric-
tion, including the use of compliant coatings. Bushnell et al. (1977), in summarizing
the work conducted at the NASA Langley Research Center and the general status of
compliant surface drag reduction, stated that, although it was possible to increase
the transition Reynolds number by perhaps a factor of two, there was no denitive
reduction of drag for turbulent ows in air. They also stated that drag reduction in
turbulent ows in water is potentially feasible and can be accomplished using sur-
faces that can be practically built. It is of particular interest to note that much of
the research on compliant coatings has been based on materials that attempt to repli-
cate dolphin skin. Yet, in the Russian book Nekton (Aleyev 1977) it is indicated that
the wrinkling (Figure 7.1) of the dolphin skin has no hydrodynamic-drag advan-
tage. Other characteristics of the dolphins skin may, however, be benecial. This
subject will be revisited in Section 7.6.4.
Bushnell et al. (1977) put forward the possibility of a feedback mechanism in
turbulent wall-bounded ows through which the quasi-periodic, coherent structures
termed bursts regenerate (Chapter 4). Older bursts grow, migrate away fromthe wall,
and interact to produce a pressure eld that contains pulses of sufcient duration and
amplitude to induce new bursts in the near-wall region. This model is supported by
the measurements of Burton (1974), who reported a strong correlation between the
124 COMPLIANT COATINGS
Figure 7.1: Wavelike folds in compliant skin appearing during rapid swimming of a delphinidae (top
photograph) and a Homo sapiens (bottom photograph) [after Aleyev 1977].
occurrence of a burst and the imposition on the wall ow of a large, moving adverse
pressure gradient followed by a favorable pressure gradient. Bushnell et al. (1977)
hypothesized that a successful compliant coating would modulate the preburst ow
in the turbulent boundary layer by providing a pressure eld that would tend to
block the feedback mechanism and, thus, inhibit burst formation. This would result
in a reduction in the number of bursts occurring per unit time and also in the skin-
friction drag. Orszag (1979) assumed this conceptual model and performed numerical
calculations of wall boundary layer instability to explore the effects of complaint
surfaces. His results, although preliminary, indicated that turbulence drag reduction
may be possible for certain classes of materials. He concluded that compliant walls
that support only short wavelengths may have an appreciable effect in inhibiting
further bursts in a turbulent boundary layer.
During the U.S. Navy-sponsored research program conducted over the period
19801985, the subject of boundary layer interaction with compliant coatings has
been reexamined to answer the question: Can compliant coatings delay transition, or
signicantly reduce turbulence skin friction on bodies at high Reynolds numbers, or
both? Several signicant developments have been achieved by the many investigators
participating in this research program. Although unrefutable experimental evidence
of compliant coating drag reduction was still lacking by 1985, our understanding of
boundary-layer ow over a compliant surface has increased dramatically over this
period. That understanding proved crucial to the subsequent successes in the eld,
which is a subject that will be emphasized throughout this chapter.
7.3 FREE-SURFACE WAVES 125
7.3 Free-Surface Waves
Before addressing the complex issue of stability of the coupled uid-structure system,
it is instructive to study the solid as a wave-bearing medium when no uid (another
wave-bearing medium) is present. Some understanding of how a compliant surface
will respond to the owabove it can be obtained by examining the free-surface waves
of the coating. As pointed out by Rayleigh (1887), the surface waves can be modeled
as a linear combination of waves having displacements perpendicular and parallel to
the propagation direction. These are called transverse and longitudinal displacement
waves, respectively. If it is assumed that the coating is a single-layer, elastic solid
of thickness d attached to a rigid half-space at its lower boundary and bounded by
vacuum on its upper surface, both wave systems satisfy the wave equation (see, for
example, Landau and Liftshitz 1987)
2
t
2
c
2
2
x
2
+
2
y
2
= 0 (7.1)
where is a component of the displacement vector, and x and y are coordinates par-
allel and normal to the undisturbed surface, respectively. The propagation velocities
are c = c
t
=
G/
s
for the transverse waves and c = c
(+2G)/
s
for the
longitudinal waves, where Gand are elastic constants, and
s
is the density of the
solid.
The free-surface wave dispersion relationship is obtained by assuming that the
wave solutions have exponential dependence on the distance measured normal to the
surface y and have harmonic dependence on the distance measured along the surface
x, and on time t
= (A sinh y + B cosh y)e
i (k
xt)
(7.2)
= (C sinh y + D cosh y)e
i (k
xt)
(7.3)
where and are, respectively, the displacement in the x- and y-direction, and k
is
the longitudinal wave number. For real the waves decay exponentially with depth,
whereas for imaginary they oscillate. Substituting these solutions into the wave
equation (7.1), and applying the boundary conditions, no normal or tangential stress
at the surface y = 0, and no displacement at the bottom y = d, respectively,
(c
2
2c
2
t
)
x
+c
2
y
= 0 at y = 0 (7.4)
y
+
x
= 0 at y = 0 (7.5)
= = 0 at y = d (7.6)
Gad-el-Hak, Blackwelder, and Riley (1984) obtained the following dispersion rela-
tionship:
M( ) 4
k
2
(2
2
)
t
k
2
[4 +(2
2
)
2
] cosh
t
d cosh
d
+
2
t
2
k
4
+(2
2
)
2
sinh
t
d sinh
d = 0 (7.7)
126 COMPLIANT COATINGS
Figure 7.2: Solutions of the dispersion equation for free-surface waves on a
single-layer, homogenous coating [after Gad-el-Hak, Blackwelder, and Riley
1984].
where
t
= k
1
2
,
= k
1
2
R
2
, Ris the ratio of transverse to longitudinal
wave speed, and = c
p
/c
t
is the ratio of the surface wave speed to transverse wave
speed.
Plots of the dispersion curves resulting from Eq. (7.7) are given in Figure 7.2 for
the case R= 0, which is close to typical experimental conditions. Only one solution
has a surface wave speed below c
t
( <1). This solution approaches its asymptote
= 0.956 for large k
d in experiments,
with the wavelength 2/k
t
2
=
T
x
2
D
t
F
m
x
4
k
m
+ F (7.8)
where (x, t) is the y-displacement of the surface from its equilibrium state at time
t and position x, T
= 1274; (b) Re
= 1105;
(c) Re
= 1225; (d) Re
, traveling-wave
utter on an elastic coating; , static-divergence waves on a coating
with damping [after Gad-el-Hak 1986b].
Figure 7.13: Typical unstable displacements of an elastic coating () and vis-
coelastic coating () [after Gad-el-Hak 1986b].
7.8 THE FUTURE 145
Figure 7.14: Variations of mean dimensionless spanwise spacing of the low-
speed streaks in a turbulent boundary layer. Filled
, rigid surface; lled ,
compliant surface, friction velocity u
y=0
+
p
x
y=0
y=0
u
y
y=0
=
2
u
y
2
y=0
(8.1)
0 +
p
y
y=0
0 =
2
v
y
2
y=0
(8.2)
v
w
w
y
y=0
+
p
z
y=0
y=0
w
y
y=0
=
2
w
y
2
y=0
(8.3)
The preceding equations are instantaneous and are valid for both laminar and
turbulent ows. Here, v
w
is the (positive) injection or (negative) suction velocity
through the wall. Upward or downward motion of the wall acts analogously to
injection or suction. The right-hand side of each of the three equations represents the
curvature of the corresponding velocity prole, which in the case of the streamwise
spanwise equation is the same as the ux of spanwisestreamwise vorticity from
the wall. Negative curvature implies that the velocity prole is fuller and that the
wall is a source (positive ux) of vorticity. Whether the wall is a source or a sink of
spanwisestreamwise vorticity depends on whether uid is sucked or injected from
the wall, whether the streamwisespanwise pressure gradient is favorable or adverse,
and whether the wall viscosity is lower or higher than that above the surface.
8.3.1 Equation for Turbulent Flows
For a turbulent ow, Eqs. (8.1)(8.3) are still valid instantaneously. For a canon-
ical turbulent ow, the instantaneous velocity proles in all three directions change
shape continuously as a result of the random changes in the pressure eld. But what
about the mean quantities? Recall fromSection 2.5 the equation for the mean momen-
tumfor a Newtonian, incompressible turbulent ow. Let u
i
= U
i
+u
i
and p = P+p
,
162 SEPARATION CONTROL
where U
i
and P are ensemble averages for the velocity and pressure, respectively, and
u
i
and p
are the velocity and pressure uctuations about the respective averages. The
continuity and momentumequations governing the mean velocity and mean pressure
for an incompressible turbulent ow become
U
k
x
k
= 0 (8.4)
U
i
t
+U
k
U
i
x
k
=
P
x
i
+
x
k
U
i
x
k
u
i
u
k
+ g
i
(8.5)
where, for clarity, the primes have been dropped fromthe uctuating velocity compo-
nents u
i
and u
k
. At the wall, the equation for the streamwise component of momentum
reads
v
w
U
y
y=0
+
P
x
y=0
d
dT
T
y
y=0
U
y
y=0
+
uv
y
y=0
=
2
U
y
2
y=0
(8.6)
where T is the mean temperature eld, and viscosity is assumed to change as a result
of surface heat transfer. The right-hand side of Eq. (8.6) is the ux of mean spanwise
vorticity,
z
= U/y, at the surface. In the absence of wall transpiration, mean
pressure gradient, and surface heating or cooling, the rst three terms on the left-
hand side of Equation (8.6) vanish. The fourth term on the left-hand side is the slope
of the normal prole of uv at y = 0. This term could be asymptotically estimated as
the wall is approached. Consider a Taylors series expansion in powers of y in the
neighborhood of the point y = 0. As a result of the no-slip condition, the streamwise
velocity uctuations u varies linearly with y. To conserve mass, the normal velocity
uctuations must vary as y
2
. It follows then that very near the wall (within the
viscous sublayer), the tangential Reynolds stress uv varies at least as y
3
and that
uv/y varies as y
2
. At the wall itself, y = 0 and [ uv/y]
y=0
= 0, although close
to the wall the slope of the tangential Reynolds stress prole is quite large.
Therefore, it can be deduced from Eq. (8.6) that the mean streamwise velocity
prole for the canonical turbulent boundary layer (two-dimensional, incompressible,
isothermal, zero-pressure-gradient, over an impervious, rigid surface) will have a zero
curvature at the wall. Notwithstanding this common characteristic with the Blasius
boundary layer (Figure 6.2b of Chapter 6), the turbulent boundary layer is quite
different fromthe laminar one. As pointed out by Lighthill (1963a), turbulent mixing
concentrates most of the mean vorticity much closer to the wall as compared with
the laminar case. The mean vorticity at the wall, [U/y]
y=0
, is typically an order of
magnitude larger than that in the laminar case. This explains the higher skin-friction
drag associated with a turbulent ow. Turbulent mixing also causes the mean vorticity
to migrate away fromthe wall, and about 5%of the total is found much farther from
the surface. The ux of mean spanwise vorticity is zero at the wall itself but very large
close to it, reaching a maximum at about the same location where the root-mean-
square vorticity uctuations peak (near the edge of the viscous sublayer). This trait
is responsible for the turbulent boundary layers resistance to separation.
In the next six sections, available and contemplated ow-control methods to delay
or to provoke separation will be discussed. The equations developed in this section
for laminar and turbulent boundary layers will help in presenting a unied view of
the different control techniques.
8.4 VELOCITY PROFILE MODIFIERS 163
8.4 Velocity Prole Modiers
As mentioned in Section 8.2.1, Prandtl (1904) was the rst to explain the mechanics of
separation. He provided a precise criterion for its onset for the case of a steady, two-
dimensional boundary layer developing over a xed wall. If such a ow is retarded,
the near-wall uid may have insufcient momentum to continue its motion and will
be brought to rest at the point of separation. Fluid particles behind this point move
in a direction opposite to the external stream, and the original boundary-layer uid
passes over a region of recirculating ow. Because the velocity at the wall is always
zero, the gradient [u/y]
y=0
will be positive upstream of separation, zero at the
point of separation, and negative in the reverse-ow region. The velocity prole at
separation must then have a positive curvature at the wall. However, [
2
u/y
2
]
y=0
is negative at a large distance from the wall, which means the velocity prole at
separation must have a point of inection somewhere above the wall, as shown in
Figure 6.2d. Because [
2
u/y
2
]
y=0
> 0 is a necessary condition for a steady, two-
dimensional boundary layer to separate, the opposite (i.e., a negative curvature of
the velocity prole at the wall) must be a sufcient condition for the boundary-layer
ow to remain attached.
The preceding arguments naturally lead to several possible methods of control
to delay (or advance) steady, two-dimensional separation that rely on modifying the
shape of the velocity prole near the wall. Namely, the object is to keep [
2
u/y
2
]
y=0
as negative as possible, or in other words to make the velocity prole as full as
possible (Figure 6.2a). In this case, the magnitude of the spanwise vorticity decreases
monotonically away from the wall, and the surface vorticity ux is in the positive
y direction. Not surprisingly, then, methods of control to postpone separation that
rely on changing the velocity prole are similar to those used to delay laminar-to-
turbulence transition (Chapter 6).
Inspection of the streamwise momentum equation (8.1) indicates that separation
control methods may include the use of wall suction (v
w
<0), favorable pressure
gradient (p/x < 0), or lower wall viscosity (/y > 0). Obviously, any one or a
combination of these methods may be used in a particular situation. For example,
beyond the point of minimum pressure on a streamlined body the pressure gradient
is adverse and the boundary layer will separate if the pressure rise is sufciently steep;
however, enough suction may be applied there to overcome the retarding effects of
the adverse pressure gradient and to prevent separation. Each of these velocity prole
modiers is covered in more detail in the following three subsections.
8.4.1 Shaping
For any two-dimensional, subsonic owover a closed-surface body, adverse pres-
sure gradient always occurs somewhere in the aft region. Streamlining can greatly
reduce the steepness of the pressure rise, leading to the prevention or postponement
of separation. Numerous biological species are endowed with body shapes that avoid
separation and allow for minimum uid resistance to their motion in air or water.
Archaic Homo sapiens discovered, through scores of trials and errors, the value of
streamlining spears, sickle-shaped boomerangs, and n-stabilized arrows (Williams
1987). In supersonic ows, pressure always rises across a shock wave, and a boundary
layer may separate as a result of the wave interaction with the viscous ow (Young
1953; Lange 1954).
164 SEPARATION CONTROL
Laminar boundary layers can only support very small adverse pressure gradients
without separation. In fact, if the ambient incompressible uid decelerates in the
streamwise direction faster than U
o
x
0.09
, the ow separates (Schlichting 1979).
On the other hand, a turbulent boundary layer, being an excellent momentum con-
ductor, is capable of overcoming much larger adverse pressure gradients without
separation. In this case, separation is avoided for external ow deceleration up to
U
o
x
0.23
(Schlichting 1979). The efcient momentum transport that characterizes
turbulent ows provides the mechanismfor mixing the slower uid near the wall with
the faster uid particles farther out. The forward movement of the boundary-layer
uid against pressure and viscous forces is facilitated, and separation is thus post-
poned. According to the experimental results of Schubauer and Spangenberg (1960),
a larger total pressure increase without separation is possible in the case of a turbu-
lent ow by having larger adverse pressure gradient in the beginning and continuing
at a progressively reduced rate of increase.
To expand the attached ow operational envelope to off-design conditions using
the concept of pressure gradient mitigation generally requires some form of variable
geometry such as vanes, slats, or aps. These can be combined with other separation
control techniques such as active or passive blowing, a rotating cylinder at the ap
knee, or use of an injection-stabilized trapped vortex. For low-speed ows, bodies
can now be designed for incipiently separated ow over large surface areas using
the so-called Stradford closure to be discussed in the following subsubsection (Smith
1977; Smith, Stokes, and Lee 1981). Although it minimizes skin-friction drag, this
approach exacerbates the attached-ow, viscous-induced form or pressure drag, and
the minimum drag body is actually a less extreme design. Also, such bodies tend to
generate large separated ow regions off-design, and therefore some form of standby
ow separation control would probably be required to ensure reasonable off-design
performance.
Skin Friction
The skin friction downstream of the separation line is negative. However, the
increase in pressure drag that results from ow detachment is far greater than the
saving in skin-friction drag. The articles by Stradford (1959a,b) provide useful dis-
cussion on the prediction of turbulent-boundary-layer separation and the concept of
ow with continuously zero skin-friction throughout its region of pressure rise. By
specifying that the turbulent boundary layer be just at the condition of separation,
without actually separating, at all positions in the pressure rise region, Stradford
(1959b) experimentally veried that such ows achieve a specied pressure rise in
the shortest possible distance and with the least possible dissipation of energy. A lift-
ing surface that could utilize the Stradford distribution immediately after transition
from laminar to turbulent ow would be expected to have very low skin-friction
as well as pressure drag. Liebeck (1978) successfully followed this strategy using a
highly polished wing to achieve the best lift-to-drag ratio (over 200) of any airfoil
tested in the low-Reynolds-number range of 5 10
5
2 10
6
. He argued that the
entire pressure-recovery region of an airfoils upper surface would be operating at its
maximumcapacity if the adverse pressure distribution were uniformly critically close
to separation. By assuming an incipient-separation, turbulent-ow prole, Liebeck
calculated the pressure eld required and then used an inverse calculation procedure
to derive the airfoil shape from the given critical-velocity distribution.
8.4 VELOCITY PROFILE MODIFIERS 165
When one attempts to reduce skin-friction drag by driving the boundary layer
toward separation, a major concern is the ow behavior at off-design conditions,
as discussed earlier. A slight increase in angle of attack, for example, can lead to
separation and consequent large drag increase as well as loss of lift. High performance
airfoils with lift-to-drag ratio of over 100 utilize carefully controlled adverse pressure
gradient to retard the near-wall uid, but their performance deteriorates rapidly
outside a narrow envelope (Carmichael 1974).
Separation Bubbles
Laminar-to-turbulence transition on the upper surface of a lifting surface typically
occurs at the rst onset of adverse pressure gradient if the Reynolds number exceeds
10
6
. The separation-resistant turbulent boundary layer that evolves in the pressure
recovery region results in higher maximumlift and a relatively larger angle of stall. At
lower Reynolds numbers, and depending on the severity of the initial adverse gradient
(hence on the airfoil shape), laminar separation may take place before transition. For
sufciently low Re, the separated owwill not reattach to the surface. However, in the
intermediate Reynolds number range of typically 10
4
10
6
, transition to turbulence
takes place in the free-shear layer owing to its increased susceptibility (Gad-el-Hak
1990). Subsequent turbulent entertainment of high-speed uid causes the ow to
return to the surface, thus forming what is known as a laminar separation bubble,
a topic to be discussed in more detail in the next chapter. Regardless of whether the
ow subsequently reattaches, the laminar separation leads to higher form drag and
lower maximum lift. Delicate contouring of the airfoil near the minimum pressure
point to lessen the severity of the adverse pressure gradient may be used to accomplish
separation-free transition (Pfenninger and Vemuru 1990).
8.4.2 Transpiration
The second method to avert separation by changing the curvature of the velocity
prole at the wall involves withdrawing the near-wall uid through slots or porous
surfaces. Prandtl (1904) applied suction through a spanwise slit on one side of a
circular cylinder. His ow visualization photographs convincingly showed that the
boundary layer adhered to the suction side of the cylinder over a considerably larger
portion of its surface. By removing the decelerated uid particles in the near-wall
region, the velocity gradient at the wall is increased, the curvature of the velocity
prole near the surface becomes more negative, and separation is avoided. In the
following, an approximate method to compute the amount of suction needed to
prevent laminar separation is briey recalled (Prandtl 1935).
For a laminar boundary layer, the ratio of pressure forces to viscous forces is
proportional to the Pohlhausen parameter, , as given by
dp
o
dx
2
U
o
=
dU
o
dx
(8.7)
where is the boundary layer thickness, U
o
is the velocity outside the boundary layer,
is the kinematic viscosity, is the dynamic viscosity, and dp
o
/dx is the streamwise
pressure gradient. At separation, [u/y]
y=0
= 0, and Equation (8.1) reads
dp
o
dx
=
2
u
y
2
y=0
(8.8)
166 SEPARATION CONTROL
The Pohlhausen parameter at the point of separation of a laminar boundary layer
is = 12, and from Eqs. (8.7) and (8.8) the expressions for the curvature of the
velocity prole at the wall and the boundary-layer thickness become, respectively,
2
u
y
2
y=0
=
12 U
o
2
(8.9)
=
12
dU
o
dx
(8.10)
The velocity distribution dU
o
/dx is determined from the potential ow solution. As
an example, suppose we wish to compute the suction coefcient C
q
|v
w
| /U
o
,
which is just sufcient to prevent laminar separation from the surface of a cylinder.
By assuming that the velocity proles in the vicinity of separation are identical with
that at the point of separation and computing (dU
o
/dx) at the downstreamstagnation
point, Prandtl (1935) used the momentumintegral equation and the preceding results
to make a simple estimate of the required suction
C
q
=4.36 Re
0.5
(8.11)
where Re is the Reynolds number based on the cylinder diameter and the freestream
velocity.
Several researchers have used similar approximate methods to calculate the lam-
inar boundary layer on a body of arbitrary shape with arbitrary suction distribution
(see, e.g., Schlichting and Pechau 1959; Chang 1970). A particularly simple calcula-
tion was made by Truckenbrodt (1956). He reduced the problem to solving a rst-
order ordinary differential equation. As an example, for a symmetrical Zhukovskii
airfoil with uniform suction, Truckenbrodt predicted a suction coefcient just suf-
cient to prevent separation of
C
q
=1.12 Re
0.5
(8.12)
where Re is the Reynolds number based on the airfoil chord and the freestream
velocity.
For turbulent boundary-layers, semi-empirical methods of calculation are in-
evitably used owing to the well-known closure problem. Suction coefcients in the
range of C
q
= 0.0020.004 are sufcient to prevent separation on a typical air-
foil (Schlichting 1959; Schlichting and Pechau 1959). Optimally, the suction should
be concentrated on the low-pressure side of the airfoil just a short distance behind
the nose where, at large angles of attack, the largest local adverse pressure gradient
occurs.
Passive Suction
For the high-speed, shock-boundary-layer interaction case, a passive porous sur-
face can be used to mitigate the local pressure gradients and obviate separation as
well as reduce wave drag and shock losses (Bahi, Ross, and Nagamatsu 1983; Savu
and Trifu 1984; Nagamatsu et al. 1985, 1987; Raghunathan 1985; Stanewsky and
Krogmann 1985; Barnwell et al. 1985; Kovalnogov, Fomin, and Shapovalov 1987)
in both transonic and supersonic ows (Bauer and Hernandez 1988). The basic de-
vice, sketched in Figure 8.7, is an empty subsurface plenum covered by a porous
surface and located underneath the shock-boundary-layer interaction region. Such a
8.4 VELOCITY PROFILE MODIFIERS 167
Figure 8.7: Schematic of porous airfoil for passive suction.
passive porous surface allows mass to self-bleed from downstream of the shock to
upstream, resulting in a more gradual viscousinviscid interaction, a series of weaker
shock waves, and reduced pressure gradients. Flow separation is then delayed and
wave drag is minimized. Suction implemented via passive bleed is employed as an
integral part of the technologically important case of high-speed inlet design (Delery
1985; Viswanath 1988).
Suction Optimization
Flow separation control by suction is the other conventional technique which,
along with blowing, is within the capacity of contemporary CFD for design and op-
timization via tailored and perhaps distributed ow proles and is well reviewed in
readily available literature. Suction can be instituted via active or passive systems
with the boundary-layer diverter constituting the reductio ad absurdum. The param-
eter space for separation control by suction (or injection) includes distribution of
mass transfer location vis- ` a-vis adverse pressure gradient regions, spatial distribution
(discrete, continuous), exit orientation, tailoring of orice velocity proles, active or
passive source or sink, and distribution of suction and injection both chordwise and
spanwise.
In summary, studies of suction control at high speeds indicate that suction holes
should probably be inclined in the upstream direction (Purohit 1987), that upstream
control is less effective than direct control of the separated ow region, and that
optimumdistributed suction requires several independent plenumchambers to avoid
local backows and consequent loss of suction control. An additional possibility for
high-speed ows is to utilize the embedded near-wall spanwise vortex structure as-
sociated with swept shocks to remove the inner portion of the incident boundary
layer (S.M. Bogdonoff, private communication). This may require provision of an
additional control shock upstream of the interaction. The increased interest in, and
favorable ight experience with, hybrid laminar ow control (where suction is em-
ployed in the leading-edge region ahead of wing box) has revived interest in suction
control for the subsonic case. Preliminary studies indicate that the LFCsuction system
for cruise application is not incompatible with leading-edge region suction separa-
tion control or high-lift requirements for both CTOL and SST (supersonic transport)
applications. Flight experiments of leading-edge suction systems for high lift (e.g.,
Hunter and Johnson 1954) and LFC (Hefner and Sabo 1987) do not indicate any
stoppers. A combined approach using the same suction surface and system for both
LFC at cruise and leading-edge-region high lift for takeoff and landing has consider-
able promise. For LFC, there is the added benet of eliminating the joints and other
factors associated with conventional leading-edge, variable-geometry devices.
168 SEPARATION CONTROL
8.4.3 Wall Heat Transfer
The third term in Eq. (8.1) points to yet another method to delay boundary-layer
separation. By transferring heat from the wall to the uid in liquids or from the uid
to the wall in gases, this term adds a negative contribution to the curvature of the
velocity prole at the wall and, hence, causes the separation point to move farther aft.
If the surface of a body in a compressible gas is cooled, the near-wall uid will have
larger density and smaller viscosity than that in the case with no heat transfer. The
smaller viscosity results in a fuller velocity prole and higher speeds near the wall.
Combined with the larger density, this yields a higher momentum for the near-wall
uid particles and, hence, the boundary layer becomes more resistant to separation.
Although this method of control has been successfully applied to delay transition in
both water and air ows as discussed in Chapter 6, its use to prevent separation has
been demonstrated only for high-speed gaseous ows. These effects are conrmed
via the analytical results of Libby (1954), Illingworth (1954), and Morduchow and
Grape (1955). Experimental verication is provided by the work of Gadd, Cope,
and Attridge (1958); Bernard and Siestrunck (1959); and Lankford (1960, 1961).
Excellent summaries of the problem of heat transfer effects on the separation of a
compressible boundary layer are available in Gadd (1960) and Chang (1970, 1976).
Active separation control by wall cooling in air is straightforward. The tech-
nique might be particularly appropriate for high-altitude, long-endurance vehicles
(HALE) having thick, low-Reynolds-number wings and cryogenic fuel to provide
the requisite heat sink (e.g., Baullinger and Page 1989). Unfortunately, this method
is mainly restricted to cryogenically-fueled aircraft. This makes it particularly ap-
propriate for hypersonic applications such as shock-boundary-layer interactions on
hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Cooling in air works according to both experiment and
theory for low (Macha, Norton, and Young 1972; Lin and Ash 1986) as well as high
(Spaid 1972; Ogorodnikov, Grin, and Zakharov 1972) speeds.
In liquids, surface heating lowers the near-wall viscosity but the density remains
essentially unchanged. Using simple asymptotic analysis of the coupled energy and
momentum equations, Aroesty and Berger (1975) compared the effectiveness of wall
heating with suction as a means of delaying separation for a prescribed adverse
pressure gradient in a water boundary layer. They concluded that surface heating
can be used in water to delay separation somewhat. However, it seems that this
analytical result has not been conrmed experimentally.
In addition to surface heating and cooling, several other methods are available to
establish a viscosity gradient in a wall-bounded ow and thus to affect the location
of separation. These include lm boiling, cavitation, sublimation, chemical reaction,
wall injection of a secondary uid having lower or higher viscosity, and the intro-
duction into the boundary layer of shear-thinning or shear-thickening additive.
8.5 Moving-Wall and Time-Dependent Separations
8.5.1 Moving Walls
The moving-wall effects can be exploited to postpone separation. For a surface
moving downstream, the relative motion between the wall and the freestream is
minimized, and thus the growth of the boundary layer is inhibited. Furthermore, the
8.5 MOVING-WALL AND TIME-DEPENDENT SEPARATIONS 169
surface motion injects additional momentuminto the near-wall ow. Prandtl (1925b)
demonstrated the effects of rotating a cylinder placed in a uniform stream at right
angles to its axis. Separation is completely eliminated on the side of the cylinder
where the wall and the freestream move in the same direction. On the other side
of the cylinder, separation is developed only incompletely. In fact, for high enough
values of circulation, the entire oweld can be approximated by the potential ow
theory. The asymmetry causes a force on the cylinder at a right angle to the mean
ow direction. This important phenomenon, known as the Magnus effect (Magnus
1852; Swanson 1961), is exploited in several sports balls (Mehta 1985a) and even in
an experimental device used for propelling ships known as the Flettners (1924) rotor.
From a practical point of view, wall motion for body shapes other than circular
cylinders or spheres is prohibitively complicated, although it is feasible to replace a
small portion of the surface of, say, an airfoil by a rotating cylinder, thus energizing the
boundary layer and avoiding separation (Alvarez-Calderon 1964). Rotating cylinders
have been successfully employed to delay separation at the leading and trailing edges
of airfoils and control surfaces (Johnson et al. 1975; Mokhtarian and Modi 1988;
Mokhtarian et al. 1988a,b; Modi et al. 1989), at ap junctures (Alvarez-Calderon
1964; Lee 1974; Tennant et al. 1975; Modi et al. 1980), and in diffusers (Tennant
1973). Critical parameters include the rotational speed and the gap between the
cylinder and xed surface.
Flight tests were conducted on a YOV-10A STOL-type aircraft having aps with
rotating cylinders at their leading edges (Cichy, Harris, and Mackay 1972; Weiberg
et al. 1973; Cook, Mickey, and Quigley 1974). With the aps in lowered position,
the cylinders were rotated at high speed, and lift coefcients as high as 4.3 were
recorded at a modest ying speed of 30 m/s along approaches up to 8
.
More recently, Modi, Fernando, and Yokomizo (1990) extended the concept of
moving surface boundary-layer control to reduce the drag of land vehicles. On a
scale model of a typical tractor-trailer truck conguration having a splined rotating
Figure 8.8: Various rotating cylinder congurations used to increase
lift and delay stall of an airfoil.
170 SEPARATION CONTROL
Figure 8.9: Tractor-trailer truck with rotating cylinders.
cylinder at the top leading edge of the trailer (Figure 8.9), drag was lowered by as
much as 27% when the cylinder surface velocity was 3.7 times the freestream speed.
Modi et al. (1990) maintained that this separation control concept is essentially
semi-passive, requiring a negligible amount of power for its implementation.
Creating a wall-slip layer biases the mean ow such that a larger pressure gradi-
ent can be tolerated before separation occurs. There are essentially two techniques
for establishing a slip layer on the wall to mitigate separation. The rst of these is
actually to translate the wall itself (e.g., moving belts or embedded rotating cylin-
ders, as discussed above). The other approach is the establishment of stabilized cavity
vortex ows. Either small-scale (Migay 1960a,b; 1961; 1962a,b,c; Stull and Velkoff
1975; Howard and Goodman 1985) or large-scale (Ringleb 1961; Adkins 1975;
Adkins, Mathaus, and Yost 1980; Burd 1981; Chow, Chen, and Huang 1985; Krall
and Haight 1972; Haight et al. 1974) vortex stabilization is necessary; otherwise, the
trapped vortex will generally periodically shed downstream, causing disrupted op-
eration and higher drag and losses. Stabilization techniques include injection (Krall
and Haight 1972; Haight, Reed, and Morland 1974), suction (Adkins 1975; Adkins
et al. 1980; Burd 1981; Chowet al. 1985), and viscous forces via low-cavity Reynolds
number (e.g., Howard and Goodman 1985). The vortex ap is the latest version of
such a device. These slip-layer separation control strategies work for moderately sep-
arated ows, but in extreme cases reverse ow can still occur away from the surface
(Zhuk and Ryzhov 1980).
8.5.2 Time-Dependent Separation
For time-dependent ows, the separation point is no longer stationary but rather
moves along the surface of the body. The MooreRottSears (MRS) criterion states
that unsteady separation occurs when the shear and velocity vanish simultaneously
and in a singular fashion at a point within the boundary layer as seen by an observer
moving with the separation point (Rott 1956; Sears 1956; Moore 1958). Steady
separation is clearly included in this model as a special case. The main drawback of the
MRS criterion is that the speed of the separation point is not known a priori, making
it difcult to locate this point and forcing researchers to rely on more qualitative
measures for unsteady separation.
In analogy to the moving-wall case, unsteady separation is (temporally) post-
poned when the separation point moves upstream, as is the case on the suction side
of an airfoil undergoing a pitching motion from small to large angles of attack (Fig-
ure 8.10). Conversely, when an airfoil is pitched from large to small attack angle, the
separation point on the suction side moves downstream, and separation is advanced
much the same as the case of a wall moving upstream.
An airfoil oscillating sinusoidally through high angles of attack can produce very
high lift coefcients and maintain ow attachment well beyond static stall attack
8.5 MOVING-WALL AND TIME-DEPENDENT SEPARATIONS 171
Figure 8.10: A NACA 0012 rectangular wing during a pitching-up motion between 0
and 30
. Aspect
ratio = 4; Re
c
= 1.25 10
4
; reduced frequency f c/U
10
3
.
Here, Re
is based on the velocity outside the boundary layer and the displacement
thickness (Re
U
o
/), and Re
, indicated above
is below the critical Re
|
crit
= 420 predicted from the linear stability theory. For a
roughness Reynolds number of about 600, transition occurs at Re
10
3
. For a
smooth surface, transition typically takes place at Re
2.6 10
3
. An important
consideration when designing a turbulator is to produce turbulence and suppress
laminar separation without causing the boundary layer to become unnecessarily
thick. A thick turbulent wall-bounded owsuffers more drag and is more susceptible
to separation than a thin one. Consistent with this observation, available data indi-
cate that a rough airfoil has higher lift-to-drag ratio than a smooth one for Re
c
<10
5
but that this trait is reversed at higher Reynolds numbers.
For low-Reynolds-number airfoils, performance may be improved by reducing
the size of the laminar separation bubble through the use of transition ramps (Eppler
and Somers 1985), boundary layer trips (Davidson 1985; Van Ingen and Boermans
1986), or even pneumatic turbulators (Pfenninger and Vemuru 1990). Donovan and
Selig (1989) provide extensive data using both methods for 40 airfoils in the Reynolds
number range of Re
c
= 6 10
4
3 10
5
. A long region of roughly constant adverse
pressure gradient on the upper surface of a lifting surface (termed a bubble ramp)
achieves a lower drag than the more conventional laminar-type velocity distribu-
tion in which initially the pressure remains approximately constant and then quickly
recovers. Trips were also used in Donovan and Seligs experiments to shorten the sepa-
ration bubble. Asimple two-dimensional trip performed as well or better than zig-zag
tape, hemisphere bumps, and normal blowing. Donovan and Selig concluded that an
airfoil that performs poorly at low Reynolds numbers can be improved through the
use of turbulators. Trips were less effective, however, at improving airfoils, which
174 SEPARATION CONTROL
normally had low drag. We will return to low-Reynolds-number situations in the
following chapter.
Other large disturbances that can lead to early transition include high turbulence
levels in the freestream, external acoustic excitations, particulate contamination, and
surface vibration. These are often termed environmental tripping. Transition can also
be effected by detecting naturally occurring TS waves and articially introducing in-
phase waves. Transition can be considerably advanced, on demand, using this wave
superposition principle.
Early transition can also be achieved by exploiting other routes to turbulence such
as TaylorG ortler or crossow vortices (Taylor 1923; G ortler 1955; Gregory, Stuart,
and Walker 1955; Reed and Saric 1987, 1989). For example, a very mild negative
curvature of 0.003/
700 for the concave surface (Tani 1969). For high-Mach-number ows,
the general decay in spatial amplication rate of TS waves makes conventional
tripping more difcult as the Mach number increases (Reshotko 1976). For these
ows, trips that generate oblique vorticity waves of wavelength appropriate to cause
resonant growth of three-dimensional modes may be most effective to advance the
transition location. For example, on a sharp cone at Ma = 3.5, Corke and Cavalieri
(1997) and Corke, Cavalieri, and Matlis (1999) used an array of plasma (corona-
discharge) electrodes to excite oblique vorticity-mode pairs and successfully advanced
the transition of the supersonic boundary layer. A similar strategy to generate pairs
of oblique waves was employed by Corke and Mangano (1989) in an incompressible
Blasius boundary layer. There, Corke and Mangano used a spanwise array of heaters
placed at the position of the critical layer to generate time-periodic, spanwise-phase-
varying velocity perturbations.
The last issue to be considered in this section is augmentation of the turbulence
for a shear ow that has already undergone transition. Notwithstanding that the
turbulence levels and the Reynolds stresses are highest immediately following tran-
sition (Harvey, Bushnell, and Beckwith 1969), the newly developed turbulent ow
is in general less capable of resisting separation than a corresponding ow at higher
speeds (Lissaman 1983). Turbulence augmentation in the low-Reynolds-number case
is then a useful control goal to energize the ow and to enhance its ability to resist
separation at higher angles of attack. Roughness will enhance the turbulence, but
its associated drag must be carefully considered. Other devices to enhance the tur-
bulence mixing include vane-type vortex generators, which draw energy from the
external ow, or Wheeler-type or Kuethe-type generators, which are fully submerged
within the boundary layer and presumably have less associated drag penalty (Rao
and Kariya 1988). These and other devices will be detailed in the next section.
8.8 Momentum Addition to Near-Wall Flow
8.8.1 Introductory Remarks
Near-wall momentum addition is the usual approach of choice for control
of residual ow separation remaining after mitigation of the causative pressure
eld or for off-design conditions. Common to all these control methods is the
8.8 MOMENTUM ADDITION TO NEAR-WALL FLOW 175
Figure 8.11: Passive blowing through lead-
ing-edge slats and trailing-edge aps.
supply of additional energy to the near-wall
uid particles that are being retarded in the
boundary layer. The additional longitudinal
momentum is provided either from an exter-
nal source or through local redirection into
the wall region. Passive techniques do not
require auxiliary power but do have an as-
sociated drag penalty. These include inten-
tional tripping of transition from laminar to
turbulent ow upstream of what would be
a laminar separation point (Mangalam et al.
1986; Harvey 1986); using boundary-layer fences to prevent separation at the tips
of swept-back wings; placing an array of vortex generators on the body to raise the
turbulence level and enhance the momentum and energy in the neighborhood of the
wall (Mehta 1985b; Rao and Kariya 1988); employing a rippled trailing edge (Werle,
Paterson, and Presz 1987), streamwise corrugations (Mabey 1988), or stepped af-
terbodies to form a system of captive vortices in the base of a blunt body (Kenteld
1985a,b; Kidd, Wikoff, and Cottrell 1990); and using a screen to divert the ow and
increase the velocity gradient at the wall.
Active methods to postpone separation require energy expenditure. Obviously,
the energy gained by the effective control of separation must exceed that required by
the device. In addition to suction or heat transfer reviewed in Sections 8.4.2 and 8.4.3,
uid may be injected parallel to the wall to augment the shear-layer momentum or
normal to the wall to enhance the mixing rate (Horstmann and Quast 1981). Either
a blower is used or the pressure difference that exists on the aerodynamic body itself
is utilized to discharge the uid into the retarded region of the boundary layer. The
latter method is found in nature in the thumb pinion of a pheasant, the split-tail of
a falcon, or the layered wing feathers of some birds.
In man-made devices, passive blowing through leading-edge slots and trailing-
edge aps is commonly used on aircraft wings (Smith 1975; Lin et al. 1992), as
sketched in Figure 8.11. Although in this case direct energy expenditure is not re-
quired, the blowing intensity is limited by the pressure differentials obtainable on
the body itself. Nevertheless, the effect of passive blowing on lift and drag can be
dramatic. This is shown convincingly in Figure 8.12 for the NACA 23012 airfoil
section with no ap, with a single trailing-edge ap, and with a double-slotted ap.
Compared with the clean (no ap) case, when a single trailing-edge ap is used the
maximum lift is increased by about 175%, whereas the section drag at C
L
max
is in-
creased by more than 180%. The corresponding numbers when a double-slotted
ap is used are, respectively, 230% and 500%. The induced drag, which must be
considered in addition to the section drag, is proportional to C
2
L
max
, and the total
drag, therefore, rises sharply at low aircraft speeds. Very recently, Thomas et al.
(1997, 1999) emphasized the importance of unsteady effects caused by the conuent
boundary layer
1
on the performance of multielement airfoils.
Many of the control methods discussed in this section can be used for external
as well as internal ows. For example, Viets (1980) used an asymmetrical rotating
1
This termdenotes the (typically) turbulent owgenerated by the interaction of the wake of a leading-edge
slat with the boundary layer on the primary lifting surface.
176 SEPARATION CONTROL
Figure 8.12: Effects of trailing-edge aps on lift and section drag. NACA23012 airfoil section
[adapted from data by Abbott and von Doenhoff 1959].
camembedded in the wall to produce large eddies in a turbulent boundary layer with
zero- and adverse-pressure gradients. By using this device in a wide-angle diffuser,
Viets, Ball, and Bougine (1981a) were able to postpone the natural separation and
dramatically improve the diffusers performance.
8.8.2 Passive Vortex Generators
Passive momentumaddition is most commonly carried out via one of two general
approaches: either macro overturning of the mean ow using embedded streamwise
vortices generated by xed lifting surfaces or Reynolds stress amplication, which
leads to increased cross-stream momentum transfer. Conventional passive vortex
generators (VGs) date from the 1940s (Taylor 1948a) and are simple and effective
and therefore generally the rst tried as a x to an existing ow separation problem.
Passive VGs have been applied, for example, to compressor blades (Staniforth 1958),
diffusers (Henry, Wood, and Wilbur 1956; Feir 1965; Brown, Nawrocki, and Paley
1968), airfoils (Pearcey 1961; Nickerson 1986; Bragg and Gregorek 1987), and the
afterbody of aircraft fuselages (Calarese, Crisler, and Gustafson 1985; Wortmann
1987). What these embedded vortices do is cause overturning of the near-wall ow
via macro motions. Fluid particles with high streamwise momentum are swept along
helical paths toward the surface to mix with and, to a certain extent, to replace the
retarded near-wall ow. The vortex inuence upon the turbulence can actually be
debilitating owing to streamline-curvature-induced stabilization.
Passive vortex generators are essentially small-aspect-ratio airfoils mounted nor-
mal to the surface. Their individual parameterization includes planform shape, sec-
tion prole and camber, yaw angle, aspect ratio, and height with respect to the
boundary-layer thickness. The spatial relationship of the devices is also critical (e.g.,
corotating versus contrarotating biplane and wing, use of downstream reenforcers,
and spacing). Counterrotating vortices force large regions of vorticity to rise above the
surface and hence are often not as efcient as corotating devices. However, corotating
vortices with too close a spacing undergo mutual vorticity cancellation; therefore,
spacing is critical in this case.
8.8 MOMENTUM ADDITION TO NEAR-WALL FLOW 177
Nominal guidelines for conventional VGs are given in the articles by Taylor
(1948b), Henry et al. (1956), and Pearcey (1961): aspect ratio of 0.51; rectangular or
triangular planformwith either simple at plate or low-Reynolds-number airfoil cross
section, yaw angle less than 15
/c
(i.e., Strouhal number St = 4), where U
3 10
5
, Bar-Sever (1989) used an oscillating wire to introduce transverse velocity
uctuations into a separated shear layer on an airfoil at high incidence. The effec-
tiveness of this separation control technique is depicted in Figure 8.13, showing the
variation of unforced and forced lift coefcients as a function of angle of attack.
For each angle, the forced case represents the best lift achieved at any combination
of forcing frequency and amplitude. At = 20
. (a) Top view; (b) End view [after Gad-el-Hak and Blackwelder 1985].
8.10 PARTING REMARKS 185
Wood and Roberts (1986, 1988) examined the feasibility of vortex control by
tangential mass injection at the leading edge of a 60
. On a delta wing with rounded leading edges, the blowing seems to control
the location of the crossow separation points and hence the trajectories of the en-
suing vortices. Wood and Roberts (1988) proposed that this blowing scheme may be
a practical solution for changing the normal force without changing attitude for the
production of both steady and transient control moments at extremely high angles
of attack and for increasing the lift-to-drag ratio of very slender bodies at modest
attack angles. In a later experiment, Wood, Roberts, and Celik (1990) have shown
that the effects of asymmetric leading-edge blowing are uncoupled at prestall angles
of attack. In this case, the overall forces and moments for symmetric blowing can
simply be deduced by superposition of asymmetric blowing situations. On the other
hand, the response of the vortical oweld is strongly coupled for asymmetric blow-
ing at poststall conditions. Wood et al.s results imply that tangential leading-edge
blowing may result in substantial rolling moments at conditions under which other
control devices cease to be effective.
Controllable leading-edge aps provide an active method of inuencing the large
vortices on a delta wing (Rao 1979; Marchman, Manor, and Plentovich 1980). These
devices appear to be capable of improving L/D ratio of a given wing primarily
through drag reduction. Unlike the control by blowing discussed above, the use of
aps results in only a modest improvement in the angle-of-attack envelope.
8.10 Parting Remarks
8.10.1 Recapitulation
The performance of many practical devices is often controlled by the separation lo-
cation. For a steady, two-dimensional boundary layer, the streamwise velocity and its
normal gradient vanish at the point (or line) of separation. For three-dimensional or
unsteady ows, the point of vanishing shear does not necessarily coincide with sepa-
ration. Under some circumstances, a thin layer of reverse owcan be embedded at the
bottom of an otherwise attached and mathematically well-behaved boundary layer.
Advancing or delaying boundary layer detachment is of immense importance to
the performance of biological and man-made systems involving uid ow. Postpon-
ing separation may lead to pressure-drag reduction, lift enhancement, stall delay,
and pressure-recovery improvement. Provoking ow detachment, on the other hand,
may improve the subsonic performance during takeoff and landing of a thin airfoil
optimized for supersonic cruising.
Methods of separation control that rely on modifying the shape of the velocity
prole near the wall include shaping, transpiration, and establishing a normal viscos-
ity gradient through surface heating or cooling, lm boiling, cavitation, sublimation,
chemical reaction, wall injection of a secondary uid having lower or higher viscosity,
and the introduction into the boundary layer of shear-thinning or shear-thickening
186 SEPARATION CONTROL
additive. To delay separation, any one or a combination of the preceding techniques
is congured to make the velocity prole as full as possible. The wall in this case
is a source of spanwise vorticity. To advance separation, the reverse technique is
employed to make the wall a sink of vorticity.
For a moving wall, separation is delayed when the motion of the surface is in
the same direction as that of the freestream. This phenomenon is exploited in sports
balls, Flettners rotor, and some experimental STOL-type aircraft. In analogy with
the moving wall case, unsteady separation is postponed when the separation point
moves upstream and is advanced when the point of detachment moves downstream.
Airfoils oscillating through high angles of attack can produce very high lift and
maintain ow attachment well beyond their static stall angles. Insects exploit these
unsteady separation effects to achieve remarkable aerodynamic characteristics.
In three-dimensional ows, the near-wall uid may move in a direction in which
the pressure gradient is more favorable and not against the adverse pressure in the
direction of the main ow, as is the case for two-dimensional ows. Consequently,
three-dimensional boundary layers are in general more capable of overcoming an
adverse pressure gradient without extensive or catastrophic separation. A turbulent
boundary layer is more resistant to separation than a laminar one, and mostly for that
reason transition advancement may be desired in some situations. In low-Reynolds-
number terminology, the transition-promoting devices are called turbulators and are
in the form of single, multiple, or distributed roughness elements placed on the wall.
The mechanical roughness elements, in the formof serrations, strips, bumps or ridges,
are typically placed near the airfoils leading edge.
Many other passive and active methods to postpone separation for low- and
high-speed ows are available. Common to all these control methods is an attempt
to supply additional energy to the near-wall uid particles that are being retarded in
the boundary layer. Passive techniques include intentional tripping of transition from
laminar-to-turbulent ow upstream of what would be a laminar separation point,
using boundary-layer fences to prevent separation at the tips of swept-back wings,
placing an array of vortex generators on the body to enhance the momentum and
energy in the neighborhood of the wall, utilizing a rippled trailing edge, employ-
ing streamwise corrugations, and using a screen to divert the ow and increase the
velocity gradient at the wall. Active methods to postpone separation include uid
injection parallel to the wall to augment the shear-layer momentum or normal to the
wall to enhance the mixing rate, the use of acoustic excitations, periodic forcing of
the velocity eld via an oscillating ap or wire, and oscillatory surface heating.
8.10.2 Computational Fluid Dynamics
The tremendous increases in CFD capability that have occurred as a direct result
of increases in computer storage capacity and speed are transforming ow separa-
tion control from an empirical art to a predictive science. Control techniques such
as mitigation of imposed pressure gradients, blowing, and suction are all readily
parameterized via viscous CFD. Current inaccuracies in turbulence modeling can
severely degrade CFDpredictions once separation has occurred; however, the essence
of separation control is the calculation of attached ows, estimation of separation
location, and indeed whether or not separation will occur. These tasks can in fact be
performed reasonably well via CFDwithin the uncertainties of the transition location
estimation (e.g., Smith 1975). This latter uncertainty has been signicantly reduced
8.10 PARTING REMARKS 187
for low-disturbance freestreams and smooth surfaces using CFD along with the
e
n
-method discussed in Chapter 6 (Bushnell and McGinley 1989). Therefore it is now
possible, at least to rst order, to design bodies over which the ow will not separate
(Cooke and Brebner 1961; Pinebrook and Dalton 1983; Yang et al. 1984; Dillner,
May, and McMasters 1984; Waggoner and Allison 1987; Szodruch and Shneider
1989), and this is generally done, for aircraft, for the cruise condition. This is not
currently done, for example, for helicopters and automobiles.
The cab-top fairings on tractor-trailer trucks (Kirsch 1974) and fairings at after-
body junctures (Howard et al. 1981) are useful experimental attempts at reducing
the causative adverse pressure elds. An exploratory study documented by White-
head and Bertram (1971) indicated that continuous-curvature surface geometry
can, presumably via minimization of pressure gradients, profoundly reduce three-
dimensional separation. Current CFD capability allows the design of intersection
regions that are properly lleted to obviate formation of the usual organized horse-
shoe vortices found in three-dimensional separated ows (e.g., Lakshmanan et al.
1988).
8.10.3 Applications and Comparisons
It should be evident from the discussion in this chapter thus far that there are a
large number of strategies that can control or mitigate ow separation. The choice of
which technique to employ is a function of the particular ow situation and purpose
for the control. Considerations include system aspects such as volume, weight,
complexity, cost, reliability, overall energy and drag budgets, and any requirements
for dynamic response and styling. Aside from design for separation minimization,
signicant applications thus far have been relatively limited though important.
Examples of successful separation control systems include active injection on several
1950s and 1960s era ghters, STOL transports, the ubiquitous vortex generators,
passive bleed for supersonic inlets, leading edge extensions for the 1970s and 1980s
ghters, cab top fairing for tractor-trailer trucks, and various types of blown aps
on transport airplanes.
Particularly intriguing in the future are possible applications at cruise, especially at
high speeds, as well as standby techniques for off-design situations, thereby allowing
extremely tight designs. In addition, increased knowledge of, and control innovations
for, vortical ows should allowsolutions to the problems of high-angle-of-attack ma-
neuvering and stall and spin prevention or recovery. Alternate techniques should also
be sought for either supplementation or replacement of conventional high-lift ap
systems. Candidate approaches include use of the LFC leading-edge suction system
along with air jet vortex generators and perhaps either rotating wings or airport ski
jumps. Also, tremendous energy saving potential exists in further separation control
or form drag reduction for vehicles that have notoriously high drag: automobiles,
helicopters and tractor-trailer trucks.
Various comparisons have been made between candidate separation control tech-
niques on common test beds. Vakili et al. (1985) reported that vortex generators
perform better than a ow-control rail for a diffusing S-duct. For a swept wing,
experiments indicated that slot blowing is more effective than either vane or air-jet
vortex generators (Kukainis 1969). For CTOL wings, improvements in the design of
mechanical high-lift systems have tended to keep pace with the trend toward higher
wing loading, and thus benets from BLC techniques have not appeared sufciently
188 SEPARATION CONTROL
attractive (Gratzer 1971). Butter (1984) and Dillner et al. (1984) provided excellent
analyses and discussions of current CTOL high-lift design practice, problems, and
performance. As a suggestion for further work, a technique that has not yet been re-
searched sufciently is the three-dimensionalization of a nominally two-dimensional
problem which, from the work of Ball (1971), McLean and Herring (1974), and Lin
and Howard (1989) tends to reduce the extent of separation.
8.10.4 Recommendations
Flow-separation control will be of increasing importance in the future as declin-
ing petroleum reserves, concern over the greenhouse effect, economic development
of the Third World, continued population growth, and increasing economic com-
petition force stringent energy conservation and efciency improvements. Much of
the remaining gains in aerodynamics involve some form of viscous ow control,
including ow-separation control. Particularly intriguing is the possibility of replac-
ing or at least augmenting conventional high-lift devices (i.e., aps and slats). In the
limit, this may require wing rotation because some increase in wing angle of attack
would probably be required.
With the exception of vortex generators, the rapid development of CFD has
transformed much of conventional ow separation control from art to science, in-
cluding the capability of mitigating the causative pressure elds and optimizing sev-
eral control approaches. However, the effects of combinations of separation control
approaches and the potential for synergistic benets require considerable further
research.
The use of ow-separation control at cruise for high-speed, supersonic civil trans-
ports may allow signicant increases in lift-to-drag ratio via increased leading-edge
thrust, upper surface and fuselage lift contribution, and effective favorable interfer-
ence wave drag reduction fromshock-boundary-layer interaction separation control.
The art and science of owseparation control is far richer than the conventional view
of blowing or suction and vortex generators. The recent research regarding miniatur-
ized and jet-injection vortex generators allows reduction of parasitic cruise drag for
such devices and is particularly intriguing for several applications, including replace-
ment or supplementation of conventional high-lift systems. Microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) offer the potential for extremely small actuators and thus even more
effective and less expensive means for ow control (Ho and Tai 1996, 1998). We will
return to this topic in Chapter 14.
Suggested future research directions include further work on microdevices de-
signed specically for separation control; optimization of air-jet vortex generators,
including pulsed injection; three-dimensionalization of nominally two-dimensional
surfaces; use of weak upstreamshocks for turbulence amplication and swept shocks
for spanwise removal of the near-wall low-momentum region; downstream vortex
reenforcers and miniaturized near-wall vortex generators; and techniques to force
momentum toward the wall (e.g., downwash from embedded lifting surfaces).
CHAPTER NINE
Low-Reynolds-Number Aerodynamics
Oh, how much is today hidden by science! Oh, how much it is expected
to hide!
(Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 18441900)
My philosophy of life is work. Bringing out the secrets of nature and
applying them for the happiness of man. I know of no better service to
render during the short time we are in this world.
(Thomas Alva Edison, 18471931)
PROLOGUE
Among the goals of external ow control are separation postponement, lift enhance-
ment, transition delay or advancement, and drag reduction. These objectives are not
necessarily mutually exclusive. For low-Reynolds-number lifting surfaces, where the
formation of a laminar separation bubble may have a dominant effect on the ow-
eld, the interrelation between the preceding goals is particularly salient, present-
ing an additional degree of complexity when ow control is attempted to achieve,
say, maximum lift-to-drag ratio. This chapter discusses the aerodynamics of low-
Reynolds-number lifting surfacesparticularly the formation and control of separa-
tion bubbles.
9.1 Introduction
Insects, birds and bats have perfected the art of ight through millions of years of
evolution. Mans dream of ying dates back to the early Greek myth of Daedalus
and his son Icarus, but the rst successful heavier-than-air ight took place less than
a century ago. Today, the Reynolds numbers for natural and man-made iers span
the amazing range from 10
2
to 10
9
, insects being at the low end of this spectrum and
huge airships occupying the high end (Carmichael 1981).
The function of the airfoil section on those iers is to produce lift. Inevitably,
viscous effects, compressibility effects, and the nite span of the lifting surface all
ensure that drag is also produced. A thrust must be generated by some sort of a
power plant to overcome this streamwise resistance to the motion. The lift-to-drag
189
190 LOW-REYNOLDS-NUMBER AERODYNAMICS
Figure 9.1: Airfoil performance as function of chord Reynolds number [after
McMasters and Henderson 1980].
ratio is a measure of the effectiveness of the airfoil. In general, this ratio is very low
at low Reynolds numbers and improves with increases in this parameter. As shown
in Figure 9.1, reproduced from McMasters and Henderson (1980), the maximum
[C
L
/C
D
] improves dramatically in the range of chord Reynolds numbers of Re
c
=
10
4
10
6
. Below 10
4
, typical of insects and small model airplanes, the boundary
layer around the lifting surface is laminar. Stalling in this case is caused by an abrupt
separation of the laminar ownear the leading edge as the angle of attack is increased
to modest values.
1
The maximum lift is limited, and the drag increases signicantly
when the lifting surface stalls.
For Re
c
> 10
6
, typical of large aircraft, boundary-layer transition to turbulence
usually takes place ahead of the theoretical laminar separation point. A turbulent
boundary layer can negotiate quite severe adverse pressure gradients without separa-
tion, and this kind of lifting surface often experiences a trailing-edge stall at relatively
high angles of attack. The stall is preceded by a movement of the separation point
forward from the trailing edge with increasing incidence (McCullough and Gault
1951).
In the range of Reynolds numbers of 10
4
10
6
, termed low Reynolds number
for the purpose of this chapter (Lissaman 1983), many complicated phenomena
take place within the boundary layer. Separation, transition and reattachment can
all occur within a short distance and dramatically affect the performance of the
lifting surface. The laminar separation bubble that commonly forms in this range
of Reynolds numbers plays an important role in determining the boundary layer
behavior and the stalling characteristics of the airfoil (Tani 1964). As indicated in
Figure 9.1, the maximum lift-to-drag ratio for a smooth airfoil increases by two
orders of magnitude in this Reynolds number regime. Remotely piloted aircraft and
turbine blades are examples of lifting surfaces having this range of Reynolds numbers.
1
The arguments and the gure herein are for steady-state ows. Insects and other very low-Reynolds-
number iers exploit unsteady effects to achieve remarkable performances, as was discussed in Chapter 8.
9.2 LOW-REYNOLDS-NUMBER AIRFOILS 191
The skilled designer has available a variety of passive and active techniques to
effect a benecial change in the complex oweld that characterizes this intermediate
range of Reynolds numbers. Roughness and shaping are among the simplest passive
methods to ensure ow attachment beyond a critical angle of attack and, thus, an
improved performance. Wall transpiration and heat transfer are examples of active
control methods to improve the lift-to-drag ratio. Although these broad ow-control
strategies are similar to those discussed elsewhere in this book, the emphasis here is on
the low-Reynolds-number regime dominated by the formation of laminar separation
bubbles.
This chapter discusses the aerodynamics of low-Reynolds-number lifting surfaces,
particularly the formation and control of separation bubbles. Flow-control goals in
those cases are strongly interrelated leading to certain difculties in choosing the
best control strategy for a particular end result. These potential conicts will be
elaborated.
9.2 Low-Reynolds-Number Airfoils
In the range of Reynolds numbers of Re
c
=10
4
10
6
, a substantial improvement in
the lift-to-drag ratio of an airfoil takes place. According to Carmichael (1981), this
is the Reynolds number regime in which we nd man and nature together in ight:
large soaring birds; large radio-controlled model aircraft; foot-launched ultralight,
man-carrying hang-gliders; human-powered aircraft; and the more recently devel-
oped remotely-piloted-vehicles (RPVs) used for military and scientic sampling,
monitoring, and surveillance. Three review articles on low-Reynolds-number aero-
dynamics by Tani (1964), Lissaman (1983), and Mueller (1985a) are particularly
recommended. There is also a wealth of information available in the proceedings of
the following conferences dedicated to the subject matter: (1) Conference on Low
Reynolds Number Airfoil Aerodynamics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame,
Indiana, 1719 June 1985 (Mueller 1985b); (2) International Conference on Aero-
dynamics at Low Reynolds Numbers 10
4
< Re <10
6
, Royal Aeronautical Society,
London, Great Britain, 1518 October 1986; (3) Conference on LowReynolds Num-
ber Aerodynamics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, 57 June 1989
(Mueller 1989); and (4) Eighth International Conference on Remotely Piloted Vehi-
cles, Bristol, Great Britain, 24 April 1990.
In this range of Reynolds numbers, very complex ow phenomena take place
within a short distance on the upper surface of an airfoil at incidence. Unless arti-
cially tripped, the boundary layer remains laminar at the onset of pressure recovery,
and the airfoils performance is then entirely dictated by the laminar ows poor re-
sistance to separation. The separated ow forms a free-shear layer, which is highly
unstable, and transition to turbulence is readily realized. Subsequent reattachment of
the separated region may take place because of the increased entrainment associated
with the turbulent ow. Provided that the high-speed uid entrained into the wall re-
gion supplies sufcient energy to maintain the circulating motion against dissipation,
a separation bubble forms.
The precise conditions for the occurrence of separation, transition, and reattach-
mentin other words for the formation of a laminar separation bubbledepend on
the Reynolds number, the pressure distribution, the surface curvature, the surface
192 LOW-REYNOLDS-NUMBER AERODYNAMICS
Figure 9.2: Sketch of a laminar separation bubble.
roughness, and the freestream turbulence as well as other environmental factors. If
the Reynolds number is sufciently high, transition takes place near the minimum
pressure point ahead of the location at which separation would have occurred if the
boundary layer had remained laminar. For moderate Reynolds numbers, separation
takes place before transition. The laminar boundary layer can only support very small
adverse pressure gradient without separation. As stated in Chapter 8, if the ambient
incompressible uid decelerates in the streamwise direction faster than U
o
x
0.09
,
the owseparates. The separated owwill not reattach to the surface, and no bubble
will be formed if the Reynolds number is sufciently low. However, for the intermedi-
ate Reynolds number range (typically 10
4
10
6
), the separated owproceeds along the
direction of the tangent to the surface at the separation point (von Doenhoff 1938a)
and transition to turbulence takes place in the free-shear layer owing to its increased
transition susceptibility. Subsequent turbulent entrainment of high-speed uid causes
the ow to return to the surface, thus forming what is known as a laminar separa-
tion bubble, as sketched in Figure 9.2. Downstream of the point of reattachment, the
newly formed turbulent boundary layer is capable of negotiating quite severe adverse
pressure gradients without separation. The ability of a turbulent boundary layer to
resist separation improves as the Reynolds number increases (Lissaman 1983).
9.3 Conditions for Bubble Formation
It is clear fromthe preceding arguments that bubble formation is conned to a certain
range of Reynolds numbers and that this range changes from one airfoil to another
as well as from one environment to another. A rough rule according to Carmichael
(1981) is that the Reynolds number based on freestream velocity and the distance
fromseparation to reattachment is approximately 510
4
. In general, then, an airfoil
with chord Reynolds number less than 510
4
will experience laminar separation
9.3 CONDITIONS FOR BUBBLE FORMATION 193
Figure 9.3: Qualitative pressure distributions for two airfoils at in-
cidence. () Potential ow solution; () experiment. (a)
Short bubble on upper surface and subsequent rear separation of
turbulent boundary layer; (b) Long bubble.
with no subsequent reattachment. For chord Reynolds numbers slightly higher than
5 10
4
, a long bubble is expected. Shorter bubbles are formed at higher Reynolds
numbers. Tani (1964) asserted that a Reynolds number typical of local conditions
in the boundary layer is more appropriate to characterize a separation bubble than
the chord Reynolds number. Typically, the Reynolds number, based on the boundary-
layers displacement thickness
2
and the velocity just outside the rotational owregion
at the point of separation, is more than 500 for a short bubble
3
and less than 500
for a long one. The corresponding bubbles streamwise extent, normalized with the
displacement thickness at the point of separation, is 10
2
and 10
4
, respectively (Tani
1964).
The short separation bubble generally has a length of the order of a few percent
of the chord. It merely represents a transition-forcing (tripping) mechanism to allow
reattachment of an otherwise separated shear layer. Such a bubble does not greatly
affect the peak suction, as determined from the potential ow solution around the
airfoil. Except for the appearance of a minute bump in the lift curve (C
L
versus
curve, where C
L
is the lift coefcient and is the angle of attack), the presence
of a short bubble has no signicant effect on the pressure distribution around the
lifting surface, as depicted in Figure 9.3a. On the other hand, a long bubble may be as
much as 0.2c0.3c, where c is the airfoil chord, and signicantly changes the pressure
distribution by effectively altering the shape over which the outer potential ow is
developed. In this case, the sharp suction-peak near the leading edge is generally not
realized, and a suction plateau of a reduced level extends over the region occupied
by the bubble (Figure 9.3b). A long bubble tends to increase in length as incidence
2
The displacement thickness
for a laminar boundary layer near the leading edge of an airfoil is extremely
small and cannot accurately be measured. Instead the momentum thickness
; and at Re
, the
ow around the cambered airfoil separates at the leading edge on the lower surface
without further reattachment. Zero lift is measured at this angle and is correlated
with the appearance of smooth smokelines above and below the airfoil to form an
uncambered, symmetrical shape, as shown in the top photograph in Figure 9.8. In
this gure, the chord Reynolds number is Re
c
= 8.710
4
, and three angles of attack
are depicted: = 3
, = 0
, and = 8
; (b) = 0
; (c) = 8
215). Both airfoils are cambered, and both have maximum thickness of 0.15c.
However, the maximum thickness point is located at 0.3c for the conventional
section and at 0.45c for the laminar-ow one. The leading-edge radius is 0.025c
and 0.014c for the two respective airfoils. The point of minimum pressure, as
computed for the basic symmetric section at zero incidence, is located at 0.15c
for the conventional airfoil, whereas this point is pushed back to 0.6c for the
Figure 9.9: Lift curves for (a) conventional sec-
tion (NACA 23015); and (b) laminar-ow sec-
tion (NACA 66
2
215). Chord Reynolds number
in both cases is Re
c
= 9 10
6
[after Abbott and
von Doenhoff 1959].
laminar-ow airfoil. As seen from the lift
curves depicted in Figure 9.9 for a chord
Reynolds number of Re
c
= 9 10
6
, the
laminar-ow section has slightly higher lift
at small angles of attack than the conven-
tional section, but stalling occurs at lower
incidence and the maximum lift is smaller
for the laminar-ow airfoil. The lift-drag
polars for the same two airfoils are shown
in Figure 9.10. The sudden increase in drag
for the laminar-ow section occurs at an
angle of attack of about = 1.5
. This
is caused by a forward movement of the
minimum pressure point and correspond-
ing accentuation of the adverse pressure
gradient as the ow on the upper surface
accelerates sharply to round the airfoils
sharp nose. The increased adverse pressure
gradient leads to early transition and cor-
responding drag increase. The maximum
lift-to-drag ratios for the conventional and
laminar-ow airfoils are 125 and 102, re-
spectively. However, the laminar-ow sec-
tion is designed to cruise in the low-drag
202 LOW-REYNOLDS-NUMBER AERODYNAMICS
Figure 9.10: Lift-drag polars for the two airfoils depicted in
Figure 9.9 [after Abbott and von Doenhoff 1959].
region ( <1.5
). At the design lift coefcients of 0.3 and 0.2 for the conventional
and laminar-ow sections, the lift-to-drag ratios are 47.6 and 59.5, respectively.
Factors that limit the utility of NLF include crossow instabilities and leading-
edge contamination on swept wings, insect, and other particulate debris; high unit
Reynolds numbers of conventional aircraft at lower cruise altitudes (not a limiting
factor for low-Reynolds-number aircraft); and performance degradation at higher
angles of attack due to the necessarily small leading-edge radius of NLF airfoils.
Reductions of surface waviness and smoothness of modern production wings, special
leading-edge systems to prevent insect impacts and ice accretion (Korkan, Cross, and
Cornell 1986; Cebeci 1989; Zaman and Potapczuk 1989), higher cruise altitudes of
newer airplanes, and higher Mach numbers all favor the application of NLF (Runyan
and Steers 1980).
9.8 Turbulators
A turbulent boundary layer is more resistant to separation than a laminar one, and
mostly for that reason transition advancement may be desired in some situations.
In low-Reynolds-number terminology, the transition promoting devices are called
turbulators. For a zero-pressure-gradient boundary layer, transition typically occurs
at a Reynolds number based on distance from leading edge of the order of 10
6
. The
critical Reynolds number Re
crit
below which perturbations of all wave numbers de-
cay is about 6 10
4
. To advance the transition Reynolds number, one may attempt
to lower the critical Re, increase the growth rate of TollmienSchlichting waves, or
introduce large disturbances that can cause bypass transition. The rst two routes
involve altering the shape of the velocity prolemaking it less fullusing wall
motion, injection, adverse pressure gradient, surface heating in gases or cooling in
liquids, or other strategies to increase the near-wall viscosity. The third route, expos-
ing the boundary layer to large disturbances, is much simpler to implement though
more difcult to analyze (Smith and Kaups 1968; Cebeci and Chang 1978; Nayfeh
et al. 1986; Cebeci and Egan 1989).
9.9 PARTING REMARKS 203
Morkovin (1984) broadly classied the large disturbances that can cause by-
pass transition into steady or unsteady ones originating in the freestream or at the
body surface. The most common example is single, multiple, or distributed rough-
ness elements placed on the wall. The mechanical roughness elements, in the form
of serrations, strips, bumps, or ridges, are typically placed near the airfoils leading
edge. If the roughness characteristic length is large enough, the disturbance intro-
duced is nonlinear, and bypass transition takes place. For a discrete three-dimensional
roughness element of height-to-width ratio of one, Tani (1969) reported a transition
Reynolds number of Re
10
3
.
Here, Re
is based on the velocity outside the boundary layer and the displacement
thickness (Re
U
o
/), and Re
, indicated above
is below the critical Re
|
crit
=420 predicted from the linear stability theory. For a
roughness Reynolds number of about 600, transition occurs at Re
10
3
. For a
smooth surface, transition typically takes place at Re
2.6 10
3
. An important
consideration when designing a turbulator is to produce turbulence and suppress
laminar separation without causing the boundary layer to become unnecessarily
thick. A thick, turbulent, wall-bounded ow suffers more drag and is more suscep-
tible to separation than a thin one. Consistent with this observation, available data
(Figure 9.1) indicate that a rough airfoil has higher lift-to-drag ratio than a smooth
one for Re
c
<10
5
but that this trait is reversed at higher Reynolds numbers.
For low-Reynolds-number airfoils, performance may be improved by reducing the
size of the laminar separation bubble through the use of transition ramps (Eppler and
Somers 1985), boundary layer trips (Davidson 1985; Van Ingen and Boermans 1986),
or even pneumatic turbulators (Pfenninger and Vemuru 1990). Donovan and Selig
(1989) provided extensive data using both methods for 40 airfoils in the Reynolds
number range of Re
c
= 6 10
4
3 10
5
. A long region of roughly constant adverse
pressure gradient on the upper surface of a lifting surface (termed a bubble ramp)
achieves a lower drag than the more conventional laminar-type velocity distribu-
tion in which the pressure initially remains approximately constant and then quickly
recovers. Trips were also used in Donovan and Seligs experiments to shorten the sepa-
ration bubble. Asimple two-dimensional trip performed as well or better than zig-zag
tape, hemisphere bumps, and normal blowing. Donovan and Selig concluded that
an airfoil that performs poorly at low Reynolds numbers can be improved through
the use of turbulators. Trips were less effective, however, at improving airfoils that
normally had low drag. Other large disturbances that can lead to early transition
include high turbulence levels in the freestream, external acoustic excitations, partic-
ulate contamination, and surface vibration. These are often termed environmental
tripping. Transition can also be effected by detecting naturally occurring TS waves
and articially introducing in-phase waves. Transition can be considerably advanced,
on demand, using this wave superposition principle.
9.9 Parting Remarks
Available and contemplated ow control methods particularly suited for low-
Reynolds-number lifting surfaces have been surveyed. The ow around these air-
foils is dominantly affected by the formation of a separation bubble. The laminar
204 LOW-REYNOLDS-NUMBER AERODYNAMICS
separation makes the interrelation between transition, separation, lift, and drag con-
trols particularly salient, presenting an additional degree of complexity. Several of
these control techniques are suited for high- as well as low-speed airfoils.
Low-Reynolds-number airfoils span the range of 10
4
10
6
. In this regime, laminar
separation, transition, and reattachment may all occur within a short distance on the
upper surface of an airfoil at incidence. The precise conditions for the occurrence of
a laminar separation bubble depend on the local Reynolds number, pressure distri-
bution, surface curvature, surface roughness, and freestream turbulence as well as
other environmental factors.
To control the ow around a low-Reynolds-number airfoil to achieve improved
performance, one must carefully consider potential conicts in trying to achieve a
particular control goal while inadvertently causing an adverse effect on another goal.
A laminar boundary layer is less able to resist separation but is characterized by a
very low skin-friction drag. However, if the ow separates, lift decreases and form
drag increases substantially. In the low-Reynolds-number regime, laminar separation
is often followed by transition to turbulence in the separated free-shear layer and
subsequent reattachment to forma closed bubble. Bubble bursting at higher incidence
leads to loss of lift and increased drag.
CHAPTER TEN
Drag Reduction
There does not exist a category of science to which one can give the name
applied science. There are science and the applications of science, bound
together as the fruit of the tree which bears it.
(Louis Pasteur, 18221895)
Science becomes dangerous only when it imagines that it has reached its
goal.
(George Bernard Shaw, 18561950)
PROLOGUE
Drag is the force by which a uid resists the relative motion of a solid. An equal
and opposite reaction force acts on the body surface as a result of the uid deforma-
tion, and drag is the component of this force parallel to the direction of the relative
velocity vector. The uid can be external or internal to the solid boundaries, and
the solid surface can be rigid or compliant. Billions of gallons of fossil fuel are used
annually to overcome the drag encountered by vehicles moving in air or water and
the uid resistance in gas, water, or oil pipelines. Flow control aims at minimizing
this drag force, and the subject is explicitly or implicitly interwoven in every chapter
of this book. Delaying laminar-to-turbulence transition (Chapter 6) is usually sought
in order to benet from the much lower skin friction associated with laminar bound-
ary layers. Preventing separation (Chapter 8) means reducing the pressure drag, and
when separation is provoked, as for example in delta wings, it is desirable to keep the
associated drag penalty to a minimum. Compliant coatings (Chapter 7) are sought
to reduce drag as well as to achieve other benecial effects. Low-Reynolds-number
vehicles (Chapter 9) notoriously suffer from low lift-to-drag ratio, and ow control
attempts to remedy that. When higher rates of mass, momentum, or heat transfer are
desired (Chapter 11), it is imperative that the concomitant drag penalty be kept to a
minimum. The futuristic control systems envisioned in Chapter 14 deal for the most
part with drag reduction. Reducing drag saves enormous resources spent to overcome
it and is clearly advantageous to the environment, the economy, and the overall in-
dustrial competitiveness of any country. This chapter is a central, albeit brief, treatise
on drag reduction that unites the disparate pieces of the puzzle discussed in more
detail elsewhere in the book and ties a few loose ends not covered in other chapters.
205
206 DRAG REDUCTION
10.1 Background
Whenever there is relative motion between a solid body and the uid in which it is
immersed, the body experiences a net force due to the action of the uid. As depicted
in Figure 10.1, this surface force can be decomposed into (1) a drag component
parallel to the relative velocity vector, (2) a lift component perpendicular to the
direction of motion, and (3) a side force resulting from any body asymmetries about
the liftdrag (LD) plane. For bodies that are symmetric about this plane, the side
force, yawing moment, and rolling moment all vanish, leaving only lift, drag, and
pitching moment acting on the body. If the body has a second plane of symmetry
perpendicular to the LDplane, the principal chord line of the body is the intersection
of those two symmetry planes and is parallel to the freestream. In this case, both lift
and pitching moment also vanish, and the body experiences only drag.
The total force acting on the body is equal and opposite to that on the uid and
is obtained by integrating the shear stress and pressure along the body surface
F =
A
w
dA
A
pdA. (10.1)
Figure 10.1: Forces and moments on a body immersed in a uniform ow.
10.1 BACKGROUND 207
This surface force is related to the uid deformation and, in the case of a Newtonian
uid, the relation between the surface force per unit area (i.e., stress tensor) and rate
of strain tensor is linear (see Section 2.2). In the limit of zero relative velocity between
the body and uid, the rst term on the right-hand side of Eq. (10.1) vanishes, and
the second term is the integral of the hydrostatic pressure around the body. This
is the buoyancy force that Archimedes had shown over 2200 years ago to be equal
and opposite to the weight of the displaced uid.
The component of F parallel to the direction of motion is termed drag, and a
body will move at a constant speed when the thrust generated by its propulsion
system is equal to the drag force. The total drag consists of skin friction, equal to the
streamwise component of the integral of all tangential stresses over the body surface,
and pressure drag, equal to the streamwise component of the integral of all normal
stresses. Flow separation is the major source of pressure dragat least for blunt
bodieswith additional contributions due to displacement effects of the boundary
layer, wave resistance in a supersonic ow or at an airwater interface, drag induced
by lift on a nite body, and virtual mass effects for time-dependent motions. The
latter pressure drag exists even in inviscid uids and occurs because, when the
body velocity changes, the total kinetic energy of the uid changes also. As depicted
in Figure 10.2, the term form drag is used to denote the portion of the pressure drag
that remains after subtracting out the drag due to lift. The sum of form drag and
skin-friction drag sometimes is termed prole drag, which indicates the total drag
that would exist had the aspect ratio been innite (i.e., zero-induced drag).
At very low Reynolds numbers, say <1, viscous forces dominate, and pressure
drag and skin-friction drag are about the same order of magnitude even when sepa-
ration is absent. In this creeping ow regime, the drag is proportional to the relative
velocity, the drag coefcient is inversely proportional to the Reynolds number, and
the body shape has some but no major effect on the total drag.
At high Reynolds numbers, say greater than 1000, inertial effects dominate except
for a thin layer near the body surface for which viscous forces and inertia are equally
important. Drag for blunt bodies is large and is dominated by pressure drag caused
by global separation, which usually occurs near the position of minimum pressure
or maximum body thickness. The pressure drag is typically several orders of magni-
tude higher than the skin-friction drag. If Re is sufciently high, the boundary layer
is turbulent and is better able to resist separation longer, resulting in a narrower
wake and lower total drag as compared with the laminar boundary layer case. The
dimples on a golf ball, though increasing the skin-friction drag, lead to improved
performance because the increased surface roughness trips the boundary layer and
thus signicantly lowers the dominant pressure drag.
For streamlined bodies at high Re, separation can usually be avoided all the way
to the vicinity of the trailing edge. In that case, most of the drag is due to skin
friction and, for that reason, higher total drag is observed when the boundary layer
is turbulent. Still, the total drag is much smaller than that for blunt body having the
same surface area. Astreamlined wing at sufciently high angle of attack is effectively
a blunt body, and the resulting leading-edge separation is termed stall and leads to
substantial increase in drag and loss of lift.
For all high-Reynolds-number cases, the total drag D can be estimated from a
wake survey using the momentum integral equation for steady, incompressible ow
208 DRAG REDUCTION
Figure 10.2: Fluid forces on immersed bodies.
with negligible body forces
D=
A
U (U
U) dA (10.2)
The only restriction here is that the upstream and downstream planes at which
the freestream velocity U
y=0
+
p
x
y=0
y=0
u
y
y=0
=
2
u
y
2
y=0
(10.3)
The right-hand side of this equation is the wall ux of spanwise vorticity. When this
term is positive, the vorticity ux is negative, and the wall is then a sink of spanwise
vorticity. The streamwise velocity prole in this case is inectional and has lower
slope at the wall, meaning lower skin friction. Therefore, any or a combination of
the following techniques can be used to lower the laminar skin friction: upward wall
motion, injection of uid normal to the wall, adverse pressure gradient, wall heating
in air, or wall cooling in water. Note that any of these methods will promote ow
instability and separation. These tendencies have to be carefully considered when
deciding how far to go with the attempt to lower C
f
.
Two other techniques can be used to lower laminar skin friction. Narasimha
and Ojha (1967) considered the higher-order effects of moderate longitudinal sur-
face curvature. Their similarity solutions show a denite decrease in skin friction
when the surface has convex curvature in all cases, including zero pressure-gradient.
Narasimha and Ojha (1967) attributed the decrease in C
f
to the tendency for the
velocity in the potential ow region to decrease away from the surface. The second
technique is used in rareed gas ows. Appropriate surface preparation can be used
to lower the tangential momentum accommodation coefcient and, thus, introduce
a measurable slip velocity at the wall (Steinheil et al. 1977; Gampert, Homann, and
Rieke 1980). We will return to the issue of slip velocity and accommodation coef-
cient in Chapter 13.
Secondly, in the range of Reynolds numbers from 1 10
6
to 4 10
7
, active and
passive methods to delay transition as much as possible are sought. These tech-
niques were reviewed in Chapter 6 and can result in substantial savings. As shown in
Figure 6.1, the skin-friction coefcient in the laminar at-plate can be as much as an
order of magnitude less than that in the turbulent case. Note, however, that all the
stability modiers discussed in Section 6.4 result in an increase in the skin friction
over the unmodied Blasius layer. The object is, of course, to keep the penalty below
the saving (i.e., the net drag will be above that of the at-plate laminar boundary
layer but well below the viscous drag in the at-plate turbulent ow).
Thirdly, for Re >4 10
7
, transition to turbulence cannot be delayed with any
known practical method
1
without incurring a penalty that exceeds the savings. The
task is then to reduce the skin-friction coefcient in a turbulent boundary layer. This
1
The passive compliant coating that could indenitely suppress TollmienSchlichting instabilities as dis-
cussed in Section 7.6.2 may be an exception to this statement, but as of this writing the very promising
theoretical nding of Section 7.6.2 is yet to be validated experimentally.
212 DRAG REDUCTION
topic will be covered in the following section. Relaminarization will be covered in
Section 10.5, although achieving a net saving here is problematic at present. Futur-
istic control systems to reduce skin friction in turbulent wall-bounded ows will be
discussed in Chapter 14.
For a vehicle with a unit Reynolds number of 110
7
/m, the rst regime exists
in the rst few centimeters and, hence, is of no great consequence. Transition delay
is feasible on the wing and other appendages of an aircraft but not on its much
longer fuselage. On the fuselage, where half of the skin-friction drag takes place,
some alteration of the turbulence structure is sought. Short underwater bodies, such
as torpedoes, are ideal targets for applying transition control methods. On the much
longer submarine, these techniques are feasible on the rst few meters of its surface.
Beyond that, turbulence drag reduction or relaminarization is sought.
10.4 Reduction of C
f
in Turbulent Flows
At very large Reynolds numbers, transition can no longer be postponed, and the
boundary layer becomes turbulent and, thus, an excellent momentum conductor.
Such a ow is less prone to separation but is characterized by large skin friction. Sev-
eral techniques are available to reduce the turbulent skin-friction coefcient, but only
very few are in actual use. The basic reason is that the majority of these methods are
relatively new and are thus still in the research and development stage. The various
drag-reduction methods discussed here will be grouped into four categories: tech-
niques that reduce the near-wall momentum, methods involving the introduction
of foreign substances, techniques involving the geometry, and recent innovations.
Futuristic strategies are deferred to the last chapter of this book. Several excellent re-
views of the various turbulent skin-friction reduction methods are available: Bushnell
(1983), Bandyopadhyay (1986b), Wilkinson et al. (1988), Pollard (1997, 1998), and
Blackwelder (1998). Bushnell and McGinley (1989) and Gad-el-Hak (1989) provided
more general articles addressing turbulence control in wall ows to achieve a variety
of desired goals. The former article in particular summarizes the known sensitivi-
ties of wall-bounded ows to various inputs having a rst-order inuence upon the
ow structures. The books edited by Bushnell and Hefner (1990), Gad-el-Hak et al.
(1998), and Meng (1998) offer many useful articles on drag reduction.
10.4.1 Reduction of Near-Wall Momentum
Methods of skin-friction drag reduction in turbulent boundary layers that rely
on reducing the near-wall momentum are reviewed in this subsection. Recall the
denition of local skin-friction coefcient
C
f
w
1
2
U
2
o
=
2
U
2
o
U
y
y=0
= 2
U
o
2
, (10.4)
where U is the time-averaged velocity component in the streamwise direction, U
o
is the velocity outside the boundary layer, and u
T
. The benecial effect of injection is most pronounced immediately downstream of
the slot exit and diminishes with distance from the slot. Performance deterioration
is clearly a result of the mixing between the low-momentum slot ow and the high-
momentum boundary-layer ow. Note, however, that the asymptotic level of skin
friction with multislots is lower than that in the unperturbed ow. Without taking
into account the system penalties for collecting, ducting, and injecting the secondary
ow, Howard et al. (1975) computed a reduction in total skin-friction drag of the
order of 50%. They maintained that further optimization may provide even greater
skin-friction reductions to help compensate for system losses.
As was the case when surface heating or cooling was considered for transition
delay or separation postponement, this technique should be used for skin-friction
reduction only when a heat source or sink is readily available. Rejected heat from
the vehicles power plant is a free source of energy, and cryofuel is an excellent heat
sink that does not require energy expenditure.
10.4.2 Introduction of Foreign Substance
Turbulent skin-friction drag can be reduced by the addition of several foreign sub-
stances. Examples include long-chain molecules, surface-active agents and microbub-
bles in liquid ows, and small solid particles and bers in either gases or liquids. In
general, the addition of these substances leads to a suppression of the Reynolds stress
production in the buffer zone that links the linear and the logarithmic portions of
10.4 REDUCTION OF C
f
IN TURBULENT FLOWS 215
the mean velocity prole. Thus, the turbulent mixing is inhibited, and a consequent
reduction in the viscous shear stress at the wall is achieved.
Drag reduction by solutions of macromolecules (molecular weight >10
5
) is per-
haps the more mature technology with well over 5000 research papers in existence
(Virk 1975; White and Hemmings 1976; Hoyt 1979; Hendricks et al. 1989; Nadolink
and Haigh 1995; Gyr and Bewersdorff 1995). Toms (1948) observed that the addi-
tion of a few parts per million of polymethyl methacrylate to a turbulent pipe ow of
monochlorobenzene reduced the pressure drop substantially belowthat of the solvent
alone at the same ow rate. Successful long-chain molecules for water ow include
carboxymethyl cellulose, guar gum, copolymer of polyacrylamide and polyacrylic
acid, and polyethylene oxide. Skin-friction drag reduction of up to 80% is possible
in both external and internal ows with 100 ppm or less of the largest molecules.
The viscosity of these dilute solutions of polymers is typically 10% higher than
that of the solvents, although most polymer solutions are detectably shear thinning
at higher concentrations (Berman 1978). The polymer molecules at rest are in the
form of spherical random coils in which each monomer is joined to the preceding
one at a random angle. The onset of drag reduction is associated with the expansion
of these coils outside the viscous sublayer. Hinch (1977) asserted that this unfolding
explains the dramatic effects of few parts per million (by weight) on the drag. The
effective hydrodynamic volume fraction shows large concentration once the polymer
molecules are stretched. Therefore, it is the volume fraction of spheres just enclosing
the separate polymers rather than the weight that is the appropriate measure of the
added substance.
When the macromolecules are coiled, the viscosity of the dilute solution changes
by a fewpercent, whereas if they are fully stretched the apparent viscosity increases by
several orders of magnitude. Onset of drag reduction occurs when D
M
u
/ = 0.015,
where D
M
is the effective molecular diameter. This diameter is about two orders of
magnitude less than the shortest dynamically signicant length in a typical turbulent
ow (Virk et al. 1967; Lumley 1969). Numerous experiments have indicated that the
drag reduction is associated with a thickening of the buffer layer and a corresponding
shift of the logarithmic part to accommodate the larger buffer zone (Reischman and
Tiederman 1975). The effect of the additive may then be represented as a virtual slip
at the wall (Virk et al. 1967).
The percentage drag reduction increases as the polymer concentration is increased
and the buffer layer is thickened. This process tends to an asymptote when the buffer
layer reaches the center of the pipe or the edge of the boundary layer. As the Reynolds
number is increased at a given concentration, a second limit in drag reduction is
reached when the macromolecules become fully stretched. Moreover, degradation or
breaking of the molecules by the ow occurs at sufciently high strain rates, with a
consequent loss of the ability to reduce the drag (Berman and George 1974). Because
of this latter point, care has to be exercised when mixing the macromolecules into
the solvent as well as when delivering the solution into the ow.
By injecting the polymer in different regions of the boundary layer, Wells and
Spangler (1967), Wu and Tulin (1972), and McComb and Rabie (1979) have shown
that the additive must be in the wall region for drag reduction to occur. Furthermore,
the channel-ow experiments of Tiederman et al. (1985) have clearly demonstrated
that drag reduction is measured downstream of the location where the additives in-
jected into the viscous sublayer begin to mix in signicant quantities with the buffer
216 DRAG REDUCTION
region (i.e., 10 < u
u
2
, occurs at the same location. For a dilute solution of drag-reducing
polymer, the peak of
u
2
moves away from the wall and becomes much broader
as compared with the solvent alone. Production of Reynolds stress in this important
buffer zone is thus diminished.
In a recent article, Sreenivasan and White (1999) challenged the prevailing theories
for polymer drag reduction. They maintained that the connection between the uc-
tuating strain rates and the large extensional viscosity is only circumstantial and that
polymer coils can only be partially stretched in a random eld of strain rates. If true,
the elongational viscosity cannot be measurably higher than the solvent viscosity, and
a different mechanismmust therefore be responsible for the observed drag reduction.
Sreenivasan and White (1999) argued that the elastic theory advanced by de Gennes
(1990) is compatible with at least two experimental observations: the dependence
of drag reduction onset on polymer concentration and the maximum drag-reduction
asymptote. Basically, the elastic energy stored by the partially stretched polymers has
an effect on the ow only when exceeding the turbulent energy. When the two ener-
gies become comparable, the elastic energy interferes with the usual turbulent cascade
mechanismby not allowing it to proceed all the way to the Kolmogorov scales. Thus,
the nonlinear action that generates small scales of turbulence will be terminated at
some scale larger than the Kolmogorov scale, leading to increased buffer layer thick-
ness and reduced drag. Sreenivasan and White (1999) carefully computed the order
of magnitude of the expected ow behavior and successfully compared the results to
existing experiments. Their results, albeit tentative, provide the framework needed
for further targeted studyparticularly at high Reynolds numbers.
10.4 REDUCTION OF C
f
IN TURBULENT FLOWS 217
The use of drag-reducing polymers in pipe lines is cost-effective in several applica-
tions. When it was discovered that the winter cooling of crude oil in the trans-Alaskan
pipeline had been underestimated, polymer additives offered an inexpensive alterna-
tive to increasing the number or power of the pumping stations. Polymer has also
been used in the the IraqTurkey pipeline. Long-chain molecules are presently used
in waste-disposal plants, re-ghting equipment, and high-speed water-jet cutting.
For surface ships or underwater vehicles practical considerations include the cost of
the polymer and how, with what, and when to mix it as well as how to eject it into
the boundary layer (i.e., using pumps or pressurized tanks), through slots or porous
surfaces, and so forth. A very important additional consideration is the portion of
the payload that has to be displaced to make room for the additive. Oil compa-
nies appear to have concluded that the use of polymer for supertankers is just at
the break-even point economically. That assessment will undoubtedly change as fuel
prices rise and perhaps as manufacturing costs of polymers drop. For submarines and
torpedoes, where space is a prime consideration, it seems that the volume occupied
by the additive is a more important obstacle to its routine use to date.
Other substances that can be added to a clear uid to reduce skin-friction drag
include surfactants (Savins 1967; Patterson, Zakin, and Rodriguez 1969; Zakin
et al. 1971; Aslanov et al. 1980), microbubbles (McCormick and Bhattacharya 1973;
Bogdevich and Malyuga 1976; Bogdevich et al. 1977; Madavan, Deutsch, and Merkle
1984, 1985; Merkle and Deutsch 1985, 1989), large length-to-diameter particles such
as bers, (Hoyt 1972; Lee et al. 1974; McComb and Chan 1979, 1981), and spher-
ical particles (Soo and Trezek 1966; Pfeffer and Rosetti 1971; Radin 1974; Radin,
Zakin, and Patterson 1975; Povkh, Bolonov, and Eidelman 1979). Lumley (1977,
1978a) argued that the same mechanism discussed in conjunction with the polymer
case governs the interaction of most of these substances with the turbulent boundary
layer. The additives affect only the dissipative scales of the turbulence, thus increas-
ing the scales of dissipation in the buffer layer. The energy-containing eddies are also
suppressed and, consequently, the momentum transport is reduced.
A surface-active substance, such as soap, is that which, when dissolved in water
or in an aqueous solution, reduces its surface tension. The majority of surfactants
appear to reduce the turbulent skin-friction drag only in the presence of electrolytes.
These additives are stable against mechanical destruction, which affords a certain ad-
vantage over polymer molecules that break down when the strain rate is sufciently
high. Although drag-reducing polymer ows undergo transition at a lower Reynolds
number than Newtonian ows (Lumley and Kubo 1984), some recent experiments
indicate that surfactants are very effective in delaying laminar-to-turbulence transi-
tion (A. J. Smits, private communication; Sabadell 1988).
The idea of placing a thin layer of gas between the wall and its water-boundary
layer dates back to the last century. Substantial drag reductions are potentially pos-
sible because of the lower density of the gas. Unfortunately, the various instabilities
associated with gasliquid interface result in drag increase. Extremely small gas bub-
bles (microbubbles) injected through a porous wall or produced by electrolysis do
not suffer from the stability problems of a gas lm and result in skin-friction reduc-
tion as high as 80%. Maximum reduction is obtained when the gas volume fraction
approaches the bubble-packing limit. Skin friction is reduced because of the substan-
tially lower density and also because of the usual increase in bulk viscosity due to
particles (Batchelor and Green 1972), which damps the small-scale motions in the
218 DRAG REDUCTION
buffer layer. Legner (1984) presented a simple phenomenological model to predict
microbubble drag reduction in turbulent boundary layers. Application of the mi-
crobubbles technique for surface ships is quite feasible. Compressed atmospheric air is
injected through a microporous skin over portions of the hull. This has the additional
advantage of reducing fouling drag and fouling maintenance costs because water is
kept away from the hull surface. The situation is different for underwater vehicles.
There, a source of air is not readily available, and using electrolysis for bubble produc-
tion will not yield net energy saving. Moreover, the presence of bubbles may adversely
affect the ow-induced noise, which is an important consideration for naval vehicles.
Spherical or large length-to-diameter particles can be used in both air and water
ows. For spherical particles, drag reduction of up to 50% is feasible for certain pa-
rameter values, although drag increase is also possible. Heavy but small particles may
reduce the drag by inducing a stable density stratication near the wall, thus driving
the turbulence toward relaminarization. Lighter particles that are large enough to
interact with the smallest turbulence scales reduce the drag through the same mech-
anism as in the polymer case (i.e., suppressing the dissipative eddies and increasing
the scale of dissipation).
McComb and Chan (1981) reported up to 80% drag reduction using the natu-
rally occurring macrober chrysotile asbestos dispersed at a nominal concentration
of 300 ppm by weight in a 0.5% aqueous solution of Aerosol OT. The individual
brils of chrysotile asbestos have a mean diameter of 40 nm and a mean length-to-
diameter ratio in an undegraded suspension in the range of 10
3
10
4
. Like polymers,
macrobers readily break down (McComb and Chan 1979) and have to be care-
fully dispersed into the solvent and delivered to the boundary layer. In principle,
bers can also be used in gases, although their drag-reducing potential has yet to be
demonstrated.
10.4.3 Methods Involving Geometry
Under this classication are some of the most recently researched techniques to
reduce the turbulent skin-friction drag. These include large-eddy breakup devices
(LEBUs), riblets, compliant surfaces, wavy walls, and other surface modications.
The book edited by Bushnell and Hefner (1990) offers comprehensive reviews of these
and other drag-reduction strategies. With few exceptions, there is little theoretical
basis for howthese geometrical modications affect the skin friction, and most of the
present knowledge comes from experiments. Needless to say, the lack of analytical
framework makes optimization for a given ow condition as well as extension to
other ow regimes very tedious tasks.
The LEBUs are designed to sever, alter, or break up the large vortices that form
the convoluted outer edge of a turbulent boundary layer. A typical arrangement con-
sists of one or more splitter plates placed in tandem in the outer part of a turbulent
boundary layer, as sketched in Figure 10.4. It is of course very easy to reduce substan-
tially the skin friction in a at-plate boundary layer by placing an obstacle above the
surface. What is difcult is to ensure that the devices own skin-friction and pressure
drag do not exceed the saving. The original screen fence device of Yajnik and Acharya
(1978) and the various sized honeycombs used by Hefner, Weinstein, and Bushnell
(1980) did not yield a net drag reduction. In low-Reynolds-number experiments, very
thin elements placed parallel to a at plate have a device total drag that is nearly equal
to laminar skin friction. A net drag reduction of the order of 20% is feasible with
10.4 REDUCTION OF C
f
IN TURBULENT FLOWS 219
Figure 10.4: Sketch of a tandem arrangement of an LEBU.
two elements placed in tandem with a spacing of O[10] (Corke et al. 1980, 1981).
These ribbons have typically a thickness and a chord of the order of 0.01 and ,
respectively, and are placed at a distance from the wall of 0.8. Several experiments
report a more modest drag reduction (Hefner, Anders, and Bushnell 1983) or even a
drag increase, but it is believed that a slight angle of attack of the thin element can
result in a laminar separation bubble and a consequent increase in the device pres-
sure drag. Flat ribbons at small, positive angles of attack produce larger skin-friction
reductions. This is consistent with the analytical result that a device producing posi-
tive lift away from the wall is more effective (Gebert 1988). In any case, a net drag
reduction should be achievable, at least for devices having chord Reynolds numbers
<10
6
, if extra care is taken to polish and install the LEBU.
Net drag reduction has been documented even in the presence of favorable or
adverse pressure gradient in the main ow (Bertelrud, Truong, and Avellan 1982;
Plesniak and Nagib 1985). Additionally, Anders and Watson (1985) have demon-
strated that an LEBU having an airfoil shape is nearly as effective in reducing the net
drag as a at ribbon. A wing is several orders of magnitude stiffer than a thin ribbon,
which affords a certain advantage for extending the technique to eld conditions.
At ight Reynolds and Mach numbers, the possibility of paying for transitional or
turbulent skin friction as well as wave drag on the device itself is real (Anders et al.
1984, 1988), and achieving net drag reduction in this circumstance is problematic at
present (Anders 1990b). For an airplane, an LEBU is likely to take the form of a ring
around the fuselage.
Two analytical attempts to explain the mechanisms involved with the LEBUs are
noted in here. Basically, the LEBU acts as an airfoil on a gusty atmosphere, and a
vortex unwinding mechanism is activated. Dowlings (1985) inviscid model indicates
that the vorticity shed from the LEBUs trailing edge as a result of an incident line
vortex convected past the device tends to cancel the effect of the incoming vortex and
to reduce the velocity uctuations near the wall. Atassi and Gebert (1987) and Gebert
(1988) modeled the incoming turbulent rotational ow as two- or three-dimensional
harmonic disturbances. They use the rapid distortion approximation and unsteady
aerodynamic theory to compute the uctuating velocity downstreamof thin-plate and
airfoil-shaped devices. The uctuating normal velocity component is most effectively
suppressed for a range of frequencies that scales with the freestream velocity and
the device chord. This important result determines the optimum size of an LEBU
by selecting this frequency range to correspond to that of the large-scale eddies in a
given turbulent boundary layer.
220 DRAG REDUCTION
Figure 10.5: Fin shapes for longitudinally ribbed
surface.
The second geometrical modication is
the riblets, which are wall grooves aligned
with the freestream. Small longitudinal
striations in the surface interacting favor-
ably with the near-wall structures in a tur-
bulent boundary layer can produce a mod-
est drag reduction in spite of the increase
in surface area. The early work employed
rectangular ns with height and spacing of
O[100/u
, as was discussed in
Section 6.4 in connection with using suction for transition delay. To achieve a net
drag reduction with suction, the process must be further optimized. The results of
El ena (1975, 1984) and more recently of Antonia et al. (1988) indicate that suction
causes an appreciable stabilization of the low-speed streaks in the near-wall region.
The maximum turbulence level at y
+
12 drops from 15 to 12% as C
q
varies from
0 to 0.003. More dramatically, the tangential Reynolds stress near the wall drops by
a factor of two for the same variation of C
q
. The dissipation length scale near the
wall increases by 40%, and the integral length scale by 25% with the suction.
Gad-el-Hak and Blackwelder (1987c, 1989) suggested that one possible means
of optimizing the suction rate is to be able to identify where a low-speed streak is
located and to apply a small amount of suction under it. Assuming that the pro-
duction of turbulent energy is due to the instability of an inectional U(y) velocity
prole, one needs to remove only enough uid so that the inectional nature of the
prole is alleviated. An alternative technique that could reduce the Reynolds stress is
to inject uid selectively under the high-speed regions. The immediate effect would
be to decrease the viscous shear at the wall, resulting in less drag. In addition, the
velocity proles in the spanwise direction, U(z), would have a smaller shear, U/z,
because the injection would create a more uniform ow. Because Swearingen and
Blackwelder (1984) and Blackwelder and Swearingen (1990) have found that inec-
tional U(z) proles occur as often as inection points are observed in U(y) proles, in-
jection under the high-speed regions would decrease this shear and hence the resulting
instability. Because the inectional proles are all inviscidly unstable with growth
10.6 SYNERGISM 227
rates proportional to the shear, the resulting instabilities would be weakened by the
suction or injection process. Gad-el-Hak and Blackwelder (1987c, 1989) proposed to
combine suction with nonplanar surface modications. Minute longitudinal rough-
ness elements, if properly spaced in the spanwise direction, greatly reduce the spatial
randomness of the low-speed streaks (Johansen and Smith 1986). By withdrawing
the streaks forming near the peaks of the roughness elements, less suction should be
required to achieve an asymptotic boundary layer. Experiments by Wilkinson and
Lazos (1987) and Wilkinson (1988) combined suction or blowing with thin-element
riblets. Although no net drag reduction has yet been attained in these experiments,
the results indicate some advantage in combining suction with riblets, as proposed
by the patent of Blackwelder and Gad-el-Hak (1990).
An LEBU inuencing the outer structures of a turbulent boundary layer may be
combined with drag reduction methods that mainly inuence the near-wall region.
Walsh and Lindemann (1984) showed that the performance of riblets in the presence
of an LEBU is approximately additive and not quite a synergetic effect. Wilkinson
et al. (1988) proposed using an LEBU device to reduce the free mixing between
tangentially injected uid and the boundary layer ow, thus extending the low skin-
friction region. Bushnell (1983) suggested that the suction mass-ow rate required
to achieve relaminarization of a turbulent boundary layer may be reduced by the use
of an LEBU ahead of the suction region.
The LEBU model of Gebert (1988) indicates that the uctuating normal veloc-
ity component is most effectively suppressed for a particular incoming harmonic
disturbance. The modest drag reduction currently achieved using an LEBU device
in a natural boundary layer may, therefore, be greatly enhanced by cyclically gen-
erating the large outer structures using the method developed by Gad-el-Hak and
Blackwelder (1987a). In this case, the large eddies arrive at a given location at a
precisely controlled period that matches the optimum frequency for the LEBU de-
vice. Alternatively, Goodmans (1985) technique to generate closely spaced turbulent
spots in the spanwise and streamwise directions may be used for tripping a laminar
boundary layer. An LEBU device placed downstream will encounter more uniformly
paced large eddies, and its performance may be enhanced. Of course, in both schemes
the penalty associated with articially generating the large-eddy structures must be
considered.
In a recent article, Fontaine et al. (1999) explored the drag reduction achieved by
combining carbon dioxide microbubbles injection with homogenous dilute solutions
of either drag-reducing polymer (polyethylene oxide) or surfactant (Aerosol OT). At
low gas-injection rates, their results indicated that the combination of microbubbles
injection with polymer additives can yield drag reduction levels exceeding those of the
individual systems, but no synergismwas observed. Additionally, reducing the bubble
size through the addition of the surfactant did not favorably affect the characteristics
of microbubbles drag reduction. Fontaine et al. (1999) speculated that, though the
bubble size was reduced by as much as 23% in the presence of the surface-tension-
reducing Aerosol OT, the diminished bubble diameter was still large compared with
the turbulent scales in their water boundary layer.
Most of the combined drag reduction techniques discussed or proposed in this
section are speculative owing to the scarcity of research in the area of synergism.
Unguided by any theoretical framework and faced with the complexity of each of the
methods used individually, one is tempted to stay away from the much more difcult
228 DRAG REDUCTION
situation in which two or more techniques are combined. However, the potential
for achieving a total effect larger than the sum should stimulate more research for
combinations of methods. In fact, in some situations one may not have much of
a choice. Certain techniques such as suction may not yield net drag reduction and
must, therefore, be combined with something else to achieve the desired goal. Other
methods such as riblets yield such modest drag reductions (less than 10%) that it
may not be worth the effort to implement the individual technique.
10.7 Parting Remarks
Drag reduction is a subject that is explicitly or implicitly interwoven in every chapter
of this book. The practical benets of achieving even a modest reduction in uid resis-
tance to moving bodies are enormous. There is no shortage of ideas on howto reduce
the drag. Many challenges remain, however, when attempting to apply laboratory
curiosities to real-life situations. For airplanes and submarines, streamlining has led
to signicant reduction in the pressure drag component attributed to separation. That
is not the case for most land vehicles which, despite substantial improvement during
the last few decades, are still more or less blunt bodies. Natural laminar ow (NLF)
and laminar ow control (LFC) make it possible to have aircraft wings with substan-
tial laminar regions and thus to benet from the lower skin friction associated with
this ow regime. Several techniques like polymer injection, LEBUs, and riblets can
reduce the skin friction in turbulent boundary layers, but there are certain obstacles
for the widespread use of any of these methods. Polymers, in spite of their very im-
pressive percentage drag reduction and their successful application to internal ows,
are not sufciently inexpensive and require large volume for their storage onboard
ships and submarines. Riblets lead to very modest drag reduction, and LEBUs are not
effective at high Reynolds numbers. Newer strategies such as the random roughness
of Sirovich and Karlsson (1997) or the large-scale vortex generators of Schoppa and
Hussain (1998) still require more validationparticularly at eld Reynolds numbers.
The grand problem remains to nd a practical, cost-effective method to reduce the
turbulent skin-friction drag encountered on the long fuselage of commercial aircraft
or of water vessels. We will return to this topic in Chapter 14.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mixing Enhancement
Now I think hydrodynamics is to be the root of all physical science, and is
at present second to none in the beauty of its mathematics.
(William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), 18241907)
I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the rm
ground of Result and Fact.
(Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, 18741965,
in The Malakand Field Force)
PROLOGUE
This chapter deals with the enhancement of rates of mass, momentum, and heat
transfer. This is desired to improve the performance of mixers of nonreacting species;
chemical reactors, including combustors; lifting surfaces; heat exchangers, including
those in HVAC systems; and numerous other man-made devices. In nature, the ef-
cient turbulence mixing is responsible for the nearly uniform distribution of oxygen,
carbon dioxide, and internal energy in the Earths atmosphere and oceans. Without
that more-or-less uniform distribution, seasonal and latitudinal temperature changes
would be even more extreme. Oxygen would be more concentrated in the equatorial
rain forests, and carbon dioxide would be more concentrated in industrial and ur-
ban centers. Under such circumstances, city dwellers at least would not survive long
on this third planet from the sun. In plants and animals, the efcient transport of
mass and energy through limited spaces is also vital for their survival. The subject of
mixing enhancement is very broad, is important to entire industries, and is covered
extensively in many journals and books. The coverage here by necessity will be rather
brief, focusing mainly on enhancing convective mass, momentum, and heat transport
in both laminar and turbulent ows.
Flowcontrol can be used to augment mixing in both free-shear and wall-bounded
ows by increasing the effective area through which transport takes place, by setting
off resonant ow instabilities, by advancing laminar-to-turbulence transition, and by
enhancing the turbulence once the shear ow is already turbulent. In cases in which
early transition is not possible (or desired), as for example when the Reynolds num-
ber is not high enough because of small density, small length-scale, small velocity,
or large viscosity, chaotic advection can be effected in laminar ows to enhance the
229
230 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
convective rates of mass and heat transfer. The effective generation of secondary
ows, recirculation zones, or ow unsteadiness is an additional tool to enhance
mixing in both laminar and turbulent ows. Successful examples of this strategy
include the use of vortex generators on airplane wings and coiled tubes in heat ex-
changers. There is a drag penalty associated with increasing the surface area as well
as with all the other methods used to enhance mixing, and attempts must be made
to minimize this penalty.
11.1 Introduction
According to Ottino (1990), the Reynolds number in problems in which mixing is
important varies by an amazing 40 orders of magnitude. Over periods measured in
millions of years, mixing in the Earth mantle may take place at Reynolds numbers
as low as 10
20
, and for mixing in the interior of the stars the Reynolds number may
reach 10
20
; the Reynolds number of man-made devices is somewhere between these
two extremes. The ow regimes may be creeping, laminar or turbulent, diffusion
dominated or advection dominated, subsonic or hypersonic, and so forth. The uids
involved may be a single uid or many, miscible or immiscible, Newtonian or non-
Newtonian, one-phase or multiphase, and so on.
In accordance with the user group, the mass transport phenomenon is variously
termed mixing, stirring, blending, fusing, mingling, coalescing, or agitating. In this
chapter, mixing is used generically to denote the transport of mass, momentum,
or energy. There is no monolithic solution to the mixing problem. It is obvious,
for example, that exploiting turbulence to enhance mixing is possible only in some
problems but impractical in many others.
At times, we may desire to enhance the rate of mass or heat transfer without
unduly increasing the rate of momentum transferthe latter translating directly into
a skin-friction drag penalty. The decoupling between momentum transfer on the
one hand and heat and mass transfer on the other is not always easy to accomplish
of course, because the tools used to increase the rate of convective transport of
one quantity typically increase the transport rate of all others. At other times, we
may purposefully enhance the rate of momentum transfer, for example, to prevent
boundary-layer separation. In this case, the concomitant increase in skin-friction
drag is quite acceptable as compared with the alternative: a much higher increase in
pressure drag had the ow separated.
Given unlimited time and space, desired transport of chemical species, momen-
tum, or energy can eventually be achieved solely by molecular diffusion processes.
In the combustion chamber of a jet engine, however, time and space are both rare
commodities. Mixing the fuel with its rapidly moving oxidant must take place in the
shortest distance possible and must also be nearly complete to ensure higher ther-
modynamic efciency, less pollution, and so forth. Diffusion-dominated mixing
although good enough for the laminar ame of a candleis clearly too slow for the
jet engine and many other applications.
This chapter focuses on mixing enhancement in advection-dominated (i.e., high-
Reynolds-number) ows. Note, however, that, regardless of the global Reynolds
number (or more appropriately for mass and heat transfer the P eclet number) regime,
ultimately molecular diffusion dominates at sufciently small-scale, high-gradient
11.2 MIXING 231
regions. Mixing of species by advection is related to the stretching and folding of
material surfaces in three-dimensional owelds or material lines in two-dimensional
ones. This is the mechanism by which distant uid particles eventually come in con-
tact with one another, that is, become mixed. The enhanced stretching and folding
processes can result in greater surface areas and higher gradients available for the
molecular diffusion mechanism to effectively nish the job by smearing and ulti-
mately eliminating any remaining discontinuities or gradients in velocity, temper-
ature, species concentration, and so forth. Provided that the oweld is already
known and that the advection dominates, nearly complete description of the mixing
processes can be obtained purely kinematically down to the scales at which molecular
diffusion becomes appreciable. The book by Ottino (1989a) emphasizes this point
of view and provides a comprehensive treatment of the kinematics of mixing.
For some applications, the efcient mixing or transport mechanism of turbulence
may be feasible as well as desirable. For example, a turbulent boundary layer in
general is more resistant to separation than a laminar one, turbulence is used to
homogenize uid mixtures and to accelerate chemical reactions, and turbulent heat
exchangers are much more effective than laminar ones.
For other applications, the Reynolds number may be too low, and advancing
laminar-to-turbulence transition may be impractical. Mixing the highly viscous in-
gredients needed to make chocolate is such an application. In this case, it does not
make much economic sense to increase the owspeed or scale sufciently to promote
turbulence. Instead, newly advanced techniques to effect chaotic mixing in laminar
ows may be used to improve the efciency of the mass transfer processes involved.
Increasing the surface area using external and internal ns and inducing appropriate
secondary ows are additional strategies to improve the rates of mass, momentum,
and heat transfer in both laminar and turbulent ows.
11.2 Mixing
Stirring or mixing is basically a process that involves a reduction of length scales (i.e.,
thinning of material volumes) accomplished by stretching and folding of material sur-
faces. This archetypal mixing process is not unlike that found in the interior of stars
or that used in making puff pastries. The primary transport mechanism associated
with stretching and folding is macroscopic uid motion termed advection. Micro-
scopic uid motions, on the other hand, are responsible for the molecular diffusion
processes. The rate of transport of mass, momentum, or heat by molecular diffusion
depends on (1) the surface area, (2) the appropriate diffusion coefcient (e.g., binary
mass diffusion coefcient when blending two chemical species, viscosity coefcient
when transporting momentum or vorticity, and thermal conductivity when conduct-
ing heat), and (3) the gradient of the transported quantity. For simple uids like air
and water under most circumstances, the transport coefcients are scalars, and the
respective diffusion relations are linear but can be nonlinear as well as quite involved
for complex uids and ows. For example, the heat conducted per unit time per
unit area in an isotropic, Fourier uid is related linearly to the temperature gradient
q =
f
T (11.1)
where q is the heat ux due to molecular diffusion, T is the temperature eld, and
232 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
the thermal conductivity
f
is a scalar that in general depends weakly on temperature
and pressure.
1
The diffusion coefcients are physical (thermodynamic) properties of the uid(s)
involved and, short of modest changes with pressure and temperature, not much can
be done about them. Increasing the surface area available for the diffusion process
results in proportional increase in the rate of transport. Similarly, increasing the gra-
dient of the transported quantity proportionally enhances the diffusion process. That
is where mixing by advection comes into play. If done right, the stretching and folding
of material surfaces can dramatically increase both the area and the gradient available
for the molecular diffusion to become pronounced. Secondary ow, turbulence, and
chaotic advection can all lead to mixing enhancement. As always in ow control, the
challenge is to accomplish the task with a strategy that is simple, is inexpensive to
construct and operate, and has the least adverse effect on other ow considerations.
We start by recalling the important nondimensional parameters for the problem.
The Reynolds number is a characteristic ratio of advective momentumux to diffusive
momentum ux. Thus,
Re
v
o
L
(11.2)
where v
o
and L are respectively the convective velocity and length scales of the ow,
and is the uid kinematic viscosity. The heat transfer P eclet number is dened as
the ratio of advective heat transfer to conduction
Pe RePr =
v
o
L
T
(11.3)
where Pr is the Prandtl number (/
T
), and
T
is the uid thermal diffusivity
(
f
/c
p
). Similarly, the mass transfer P eclet number is dened as the ratio of ad-
vective mass transfer to mass diffusion
Pe ReSc =
v
o
L
D
AB
(11.4)
where Sc is the Schmidt number (/D
AB
), and D
AB
is the binary mass diffusion
coefcient between chemical species Aand B. The focus in this chapter is on mixing
by advection. Therefore, the Reynolds number and both P eclet numbers are assumed
to be large.
Finally, the Nusselt number is equal to the dimensionless temperature gradient
at the wall and provides a measure of the convective heat transfer occurring at the
surface
Nu
hL
f
=
T
=0
(11.5)
where h is the convection heat transfer coefcient,
f
is the uid thermal conduc-
tivity, and the superscript
denotes dimensionless quantity. Similarly, the Sherwood
1
Note that once
f
varies with T, the heat ux-temperature relation (11.1) becomes nonlinear.
11.2 MIXING 233
number is equal to the dimensionless concentration gradient at the wall and provides
a measure of the convective mass transfer occurring at the surface
Sh
h
m
L
D
AB
=
C
A
y
=0
(11.6)
where h
m
is the convection mass transfer coefcient, and C
A
is the concentration (or
mass fraction) of species A.
11.2.1 Kinematical Description
To analyze advection-dominated mixing, we may simply follow the uid surfaces
as they stretch and fold by the rate-of-strain eld. In principle, this kinematical
description of the process requires only knowledge of the velocity eld and of the
initial distribution of the particular transported quantity. At some scale of the motion
at which molecular diffusion becomes important, the pure kinematical description is
inadequate, and more involved analysis is needed. As a background, we rst elaborate
on the difference between a passive scalar and a passively transported tracer. Although
the literature on these two seemingly simple concepts is sufciently muddled, we will
argue below that a passive scalar is not necessarily a passively transported tracer. As
maintained by Hassan Aref (private communication), there are different degrees of
passivity.
A passive scalar, or passive contaminant, is one that does not affect the dynamics
of the ow in which it resides. In this case, the conservation equation for that scalar
is decoupled from the continuity and momentum equations describing the ow dy-
namics. For example, temperature is considered a passive contaminant if the ow
is incompressible and its density and viscosity are both independent of temperature.
In this case, the energy equation is decoupled from the NavierStokes equations.
Provided that the thermal conductivity is constant, the decoupled energy equation
is linear and can usually readily be integrated after the velocity eld is computed
from the continuity and momentum equations. The exception is turbulent owelds,
whichshort of direct numerical simulationsare known only probabilistically, and
nonintegrable laminar ows, that is, those admitting chaotic solutions to the energy
equation despite a well-behaved velocity eld (see Section 11.6).
A tracer that follows uid particlesa passively transported traceris one for
which diffusion is negligible and no source terms exist in its conservation equation.
For example, temperature T is passively transported or simply advected by the ow
and described by
DT
Dt
=
T
t
+u T = 0 (11.7)
if both conduction (molecular diffusion of heat) and dissipation are neglected in
the energy equation. The former requires an innite P eclet number, and the latter
requires the ratio of Eckert number to Reynolds number to be vanishingly small (see
Eq. (2.25)).
It is clear then that a passive scalar is not necessarily a passively transported tracer,
and vice versa. For example, the low-speed ow of a low-Prandtl-number uid (such
as mercury) can be described by a decoupled energy equation provided that the
temperature differences involved are not too high. In other words, the temperature
234 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
in this case can be treated as a passive contaminant. Heat conduction is important,
however, and the energy diffuses appreciably as it is advected by the ow and cannot
therefore be considered a passively transported tracer. For a reverse example, consider
the high-speed ow of a gas away from solid surfaces. For such a compressible,
inviscid, nonconducting ow, the energy equation is coupled to the momentum and
continuity equations, and the temperature eld does affect the owdynamics, that is,
T can no longer be considered a passive scalar. But Eq. (11.7) still holds, albeit with
an unknown velocity eld, and T is a passively transported tracer constant along any
particular particle path.
Similar arguments can be made if species concentration replaces temperature. In
this case, the mass transfer P eclet number determines the importance of advection
relative to molecular diffusion, and chemical reactions, if any, provide the source
terms in the species conservation equation. Only a nonreacting, nondiffusing species
can be considered a passively transported tracer.
Within the preceding approximation, the passively transported tracer T remains
constant along any particular particle path, and the Lagrangian equivalent to the
Eulerian equation (11.7) reads
dX
dt
= u (x, t) (11.8)
where X is the instantaneous position of a uid particle
2
characterized by its initial
position X
o
at a reference time say t = 0, and u is the Eulerian velocity eld, which is
presumably a known function of position and time determined from integrating the
continuity and momentumequations. Equation (11.8) is a dynamical systemdescrib-
ing the particle paths. For time-dependent ows, the particle paths, streamlines, and
streaklines may not coincide, and the dynamical system (11.8) is nonautonomous.
To compute the spatial distribution of a passively transported tracer at the present
time t, Eq. (11.8) is integrated backwards, in the direction of negative time, to deter-
mine the initial positions of all uid particles whose present positions are of interest.
The value of T at any present uid particle position is then simply equated to the
(presumably known) tracer value at the initial particle position at t = 0. In accor-
dance with the velocity eld, Eq. (11.8) can be linear or nonlinear and can be either
integrable or nonintegrable. Chaotic (i.e., nonintegrable) solutions can be expected
(but not guaranteed) if the number of degrees of freedom of the dynamical system
is at least three and if Eq. (11.8) is nonlinear. Two-dimensional, unsteady ows and
three-dimensional steady ows can thus exhibit chaotic behavior of particle trajec-
tories even if the velocity eld itself is nonchaotic.
As a result of chaotic particle motions, enhanced mixing and transport take place
because a group of adjacent particles in chaotic motion will tend to deviate exponen-
tially from one another, and this leads to substantial mixing with the surrounding
uid in a much shorter time than would be expected for regular motion. The resulting
tremendous stretching of nite uid regions paves the way for an enhanced activity
by diffusion due to the greater surface area and gradient available for the molecular
processes. We will return to the issue of chaotic advection in Section 11.6.
2
Note that x and X are the same quantity: position in physical space. The former is the spatial position
an independent variablein the Eulerian frame. The latter symbol is the material point position elda
dependent variablein the Lagrangian frame.
11.3 EARLY TRANSITION 235
11.2.2 Enhancement Strategies
To close this section on mixing, the following list categorizes the variety of strate-
gies available to enhance the transport of mass, momentum, and heat:
Increase the surface area of the solid using external and internal ns.
(11.9)
gives approximately the ratio of rate of momentum transfer due to turbulence to
that due to molecular motion (i.e., due to viscous transport). Looking at it from a
different perspective, in a problem with an imposed length scale, Re
1
is the ratio
of a turbulence time scale to a molecular diffusion time scale that would prevail
in the absence of turbulence. Turbulence is almost always a high-Reynolds-number
phenomenon, and hence the turbulence diffusion is much faster than the molecular
one. For example, the warmth of a hot-water radiator is felt throughout a typical-
sized room in minutes rather than hours or even days. This enhanced transport,
as compared with molecular diffusion, is caused by the weak natural-convection
turbulent currents that are driven by the temperature and density gradients in the
vicinity of the radiator.
236 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
The Reynolds number above should not be confused with that in Eq. (11.2).
Consider, for example, a high-Reynolds-number, boundary-layer-type ow. In this
case, the Reynolds number in Eq. (11.2) is related to the ratio of the convective length
scale along the ow to the much smaller diffusive length scale across the ow. The
turbulence Reynolds number in Eq. (11.9), on the other hand, reects the ratio of
the cross-streamlength scale in a turbulent boundary layer to the cross-streamlength
scale in a laminar owhaving the same v
o
L/. The tangential Reynolds stress (uv)
very efciently drives the cross-streamgrowth in the turbulent owcase, whereas the
generally smaller viscous stress (U/y) is responsible for the more modest laminar
boundary layer growth. Having a larger Re in Eq. (11.2) than that in Eq. (11.9)
merely indicates that the streamwise length scale is larger than the cross-stream one
even in the turbulent ow case (i.e., the boundary layer is still relatively thin).
Similar arguments can be made for heat and mass transfer. The turbulence P eclet
number Pe dened using the thermal diffusivity
T
or the binary mass diffusivity
D
AB
,
Pe
u
T
(11.10)
Pe
u
D
AB
(11.11)
compares respectively the heat transfer rate or the mass transfer rate due to turbulence
to that due to molecular diffusion.
11.3.1 Wall-Bounded Flows
Advancing transition for wall-bounded ows is discussed rst, and the topic of
free-shear ows is deferred to the following subsection. As a means for preventing
ow separation, particularly for low-Reynolds-number lifting surfaces, early transi-
tion in wall-bounded ows was considered in Chapters 8 and 9. Methods to advance
boundary-layer transition are of course the mirror image of the transition-delaying
strategies discussed in Chapter 6.
Recall that in low-Reynolds-number terminology the transition-promoting de-
vices are called turbulators. For a zero-pressure-gradient boundary layer, transition
typically occurs at a Reynolds number based on distance from leading edge of the
order of 10
6
. The critical Reynolds number Re
crit
below which perturbations of all
wave numbers decay is about 6 10
4
. To advance the transition Reynolds number,
one may attempt to lower the critical Re, increase the growth rate of Tollmien
Schlichting waves, or introduce large disturbances that can cause bypass transition.
The rst two routes involve altering the shape of the velocity prolemaking it
less fullusing wall motion, injection, adverse pressure gradient, surface heating in
gases or cooling in liquids, or other strategies to increase the near-wall viscosity. The
third route, exposing the boundary layer to large disturbances, is much simpler to
implement though more difcult to analyze.
Morkovin (1984) broadly classied the large disturbances that can cause bypass
transition into steady or unsteady ones originating in the freestream or at the body
surface. The most common example is single, multiple, or distributed roughness ele-
ments placed on the wall. For lifting surfaces, for example, the mechanical roughness
elements, in the form of serrations, strips, bumps, or ridges, are typically placed near
11.3 EARLY TRANSITION 237
the airfoils leading edge. If the roughness characteristic length is large enough, the
disturbance introduced is nonlinear, and bypass transition takes place. For a discrete
three-dimensional roughness element of height-to-width ratio of one placed on a at
plate, Tani (1969) reported a transition Reynolds number of Re
10
3
. Here, Re
|
crit
= 420 predicted from the linear stability theory for a
zero-pressure-gradient at plate. For a roughness Reynolds number of about 600,
transition occurs at Re
10
3
. For a smooth surface, in contrast, transition typically
takes place at Re
2.6 10
3
.
Other large disturbances that can lead to early transition include high turbulence
levels in the freestream, external acoustic excitations, particulate contamination, and
surface vibration. These are often termed environmental tripping. Transition can also
be effected by detecting naturally occurring TS waves and articially introducing
in-phase waves. Transition can be considerably advanced, on demand, using this
wave superposition principle.
Early transition can also be achieved by exploiting other routes to turbulence such
as TaylorG ortler or crossow vortices. For example, a very mild negative curvature
of (0.003/
700 for the concave surface. For high-Mach-number ows, the general decay
in spatial amplication rate of TS waves makes conventional tripping more difcult
as the Mach number increases. For these ows, trips that generate oblique vorticity
waves of appropriate wavelength to cause resonant growth of three-dimensional
modes may be most effective to advance the transition location. For example, on a
sharp cone at Ma = 3.5, Corke and Cavalieri (1997) and Corke et el. (1999) used an
array of plasma (corona-discharge) electrodes to excite oblique vorticity-mode pairs
and successfully advanced the transition of the supersonic boundary layer.
11.3.2 Free-Shear Flows
As discussed in Chapter 3, free-shear ows, such as jets, wakes, and mixing layers,
are characterized by inectional mean-velocity proles and are therefore susceptible
to inviscid instabilities. Viscosity is only a damping inuence in this case, and the
prime instability mechanism is vortical induction. Control goals for such ows in-
clude transition delay or advancement, mixing enhancement, and noise suppression.
Free-shear ows and separated boundary layers are intrinsically unstable and lend
themselves more readily to manipulation.
Free-shear ows originate from some kind of surface upstream, be it a nozzle, a
moving body, or a splitter plate, and ow-control devices can therefore be placed on
the corresponding walls, albeit far fromthe fully developed regions. Examples of such
control include changing the geometry of a jet exit from circular to elliptic (Gutmark
and Ho 1986), using periodic suction or injection in the lee side of a blunt body to
affect its wake (Williams and Amato 1989), and vibrating the splitter plate of a mixing
layer (Fiedler et al. 1988). These and other techniques are extensively reviewed by
Fiedler and Fernholz (1990), who offer a comprehensive list of relevant references,
and more recently by Gutmark et al. (1995), Viswanath (1995), and Fiedler (1998).
238 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
Because of the nature of their instabilities, free-shear ows undergo transition at
extremely lowReynolds numbers as compared with wall-bounded ows. The critical
Reynolds number for jets, wakes, and mixing layers is typically Re
crit
= O[10]. Many
techniques are available to delay laminar-to-turbulence transition for both kinds of
ows, but none would do that to indenitely high Reynolds numbers. Therefore,
for Reynolds numbers beyond a reasonable limit, one should not attempt to prevent
transition but rather deal with the ensuing turbulence. Of course early transition
to turbulence can be advantageous in some circumstances, for example to achieve
separation delay, enhanced mixing or augmented heat transfer. The task of advancing
transition is generally simpler than trying to delay it and is more relevant to the
present chapter. Unless the uid is very viscous or the speed and length scales are
extremely small, jets, wakes, and mixing layers will readily undergo laminar-to-
turbulence transition close to their source.
In addition to grouping the different kinds of hydrodynamic instabilities as invis-
cid or viscous, one could also classify them as convective or absolute based on the
linear response of the system to an initial localized impulse (Huerre and Monkewitz
1990). A ow is convectively unstable if, at any xed location, this response eventu-
ally decays in time; in other words, if all growing disturbances convect downstream
from their source. Convective instabilities occur when there is no mechanism for
upstream disturbance propagation, as, for example, in the case of rigid-wall bound-
ary layers. If the disturbance is removed, then perturbation propagates downstream
and the ow relaxes to an undisturbed state. Suppression or enhancement of con-
vective instabilities is particularly effective when applied near the point where the
perturbations originate.
If any of the growing disturbances has zero group velocity, the ow is abso-
lutely unstable. This means that the local system response to an initial impulse grows
in time. Absolute instabilities occur when a mechanism exists for upstream distur-
bance propagation, as, for example, in the separated ow over a backward-facing
step where the ow recirculation provides such mechanism. In this case, some of
the growing disturbances can travel back upstream and continually disrupt the ow
even after the initial disturbance is neutralized. In some ows (e.g., two-dimensional
blunt-body wakes), certain regions are absolutely unstable whereas others are con-
vectively unstable. The upstreamaddition of acoustic or electric feedback can change
a convectively unstable ow to an absolutely unstable one, and self-excited ow os-
cillations can thus be generated (e.g., Reisenthel, Xiong, and Nagib 1991). In any
case, identifying the character of ow instability facilitates its effective control (i.e.,
suppressing or amplifying the perturbation as needed).
11.4 Turbulence Enhancement
As emphasized earlier, an important characteristic of turbulent ows is the random-
motion ability to transport or mix mass, momentum, and energy. The respective rates
of transport are typically several orders of magnitude greater than the corresponding
uxes due to molecular diffusion. But can one improve on that impressive feat?
The mass, energy, and momentum transport in a turbulent ow are accomplished
via strong correlations between the corresponding uctuating quantities (e.g., c
A
v,
v, uv, where c
A
is the concentration uctuations of species A, is the temperature
uctuations, and u and v are respectively the uctuating streamwise and cross-stream
11.4 TURBULENCE ENHANCEMENT 239
velocity components). It is obvious, then, that to enhance turbulence transport one
has to strengthen the aforementioned correlations. This can be achieved by effecting
appropriate secondary ows, recirculation zones, or owunsteadiness. We offer here
a few examples of passive and active control methods to accomplish this, rst for
boundary layers and then for free-shear ows.
11.4.1 Turbulent Wall-Bounded Flows
To enhance turbulence in wall-bounded ows, one may reverse the stimuli dis-
cussed in Section 10.5 in connection with relaminarization by using injection instead
of suction in external ows, decelerating ows instead of accelerating ones, negative
curvature (concave) instead of positive curvature (convex), unstable stratication
instead of a stable one, and so on. The reverse stimuli will lead to an increase in
turbulence production and enhanced mass, momentum, and heat transfer. Rough-
ness will also enhance the turbulence, but its associated drag penalty must be care-
fully considered. Other devices to enhance the turbulence mixing include vane-type
vortex generators, which draw energy from the external ow, or Wheeler-type or
Kuethe-type generators, which are fully submerged within the boundary layer and
presumably have less associated drag penalty (Rao and Kariya 1988). These and other
passive and active strategies to energize the near-wall turbulence and augment the
cross-stream momentum transport via Reynolds stresses were extensively discussed
in Section 8.8 in connection with separation delay.
The turbulence levels in the near-wall region can be modestly augmented by
freestream excitation. In a unique experiment, Bandyopadhyay (1988) used a pitch-
ing airfoil located outside a turbulent boundary layer to resonate the viscosity-
dominated unsteady ow in a row of minute transverse square cavities at the wall.
In a narrow band of pitching frequencies, the near-wall turbulence levels increased
by as much as 6%, whereas the rest of the boundary layer seemed transparent to the
external disturbances. This result is particularly signicant because it demonstrates
that near-wall events may be controlled from the freestream and, therefore, that a
dynamic coupling between disparate scales may exist.
11.4.2 Turbulent Free-Shear Flows
Turbulent free-shear ows, like their wall-bounded counterparts, are dominated
by large-scale coherent structures that, in turn, are lled with incoherent motions of
smaller scales. The ratio of the largest to the smallest scales varies as Re
(3/4)
, and
the large eddies control the most important dynamics of the ow. To strengthen the
correlations described above, most turbulence-enhancement strategies for free-shear
ows center around controlling the processes that produce and sustain the large
eddies. The goal is to achieve an order one effect using an order perturbation. The
control is best carried out in the early stages of development because the growth of
shear layers is rather sensitive to their initial conditions.
As examples of targeting large-scale structures, we rst focus on ow in turbu-
lent jets. The dominant structures in axisymmetric jets are toroidal rings in the near
eld and helical structures in the far eld. Superposition of a plane axial acoustic
perturbation having a frequency that falls within the sensitive range of the basic ow
locks in the initial formation of vortex rings to the excitation frequency (Zaman and
Hussain 1980). This causes the subsequent growth and spreading of the jet by vortex
pairing to be augmented. Other strategies to enhance mixing in jets include (1) us-
ing an elliptical orice, thus producing elliptical vortex structures that exhibit large
240 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
majorminor axis oscillations caused by a curvature-dependent self-induction and
interaction between azimuthal and axial vortices (Ho and Gutmark 1987; Hussain
and Husain 1989; Husain and Hussain 1991, 1993; Gutmark and Grinstein 1999);
(2) using suction at the jet lip to produce local regions of backow and large-
amplitude, self-excited oscillations associated with the resulting absolute instability
(Strykowski and Niccum 1991); and (3) forcing the jet with multiple frequencies and
modes to make the near-eld ring vortices slightly eccentric (Reynolds 1996).
In this latter strategy, the rings act to tilt one another, and thus they can be made
to move in different directions. By adding helical perturbations to axial ones, the
vortex rings leave the nozzle lip eccentrically, and for an axial-to-helical frequency
ratio of 2, the jet can be split into two distinct branches that emerge at an angle
to the jet axisthe bifurcating jet of Juvet and Reynolds (1989). If the ratio of
frequencies is incommensurate but in the range of 1.73.5, the vortex rings are sent
in all directions and the jet explodes into a shower of vortex ringsthe blooming jet
of Lee and Reynolds (1985). As compared with the spreading angle of about 4
for an
unperturbed axisymmetric turbulent jet, the spreading angle of a blooming jet can be
as much as 75
, which is achieved at Re
D
=5000 and an axialorbital frequency ratio
of 2.3. Note, however, that as the vortex rings wander away fromthe primary jet axis,
the blooming jet does not remain centered. This prompted some (e.g., Husain and
Hussain 1983) to termthe enhanced mixing as apparent and not real. With increased
intensity of the required acoustic perturbations, these remarkable phenomena have
been extended to jet Reynolds numbers as high as 10
5
.
The ability of reactants to come together is a critical factor in determining the
rate at which the product of a chemical reaction is formed. This is particularly true
in reactions in which the reactive and diffusive time scales are longer than the ad-
vective time scale. In this case, the overall reaction yield is very sensitive to uid
mixing. For fast chemical reactions, mixing is relatively slow, desired reactions are
slowed, and undesired ones are often enhanced. Product selectivity is reduced, and
excessive production of waste results. A notorious example is the highly undesirable
formation of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO
2
) when oxygen combines
with atmospheric nitrogen rather than with the hydrocarbon fuel in internal com-
bustion engines. Both NO
x
compounds are considered toxic, and NO is related to
the formation of photochemical smog. Improvements of combustion processes not
only decrease fuel consumption but also reduce pollutant generation (Pope 1996).
For example, simply imparting swirl to the incoming air in jet-engine combustors
improves fuel economy and pollution emission. The same technique is now used
in high-efciency home oil burners. Active control strategies to enhance mixing in
combustion applications are reviewed by Haile et al. (1998).
Lastly, methods to enhance mixing in compressible free-shear ows are reviewed
by Gutmark et al. (1995). There the challenge stems from the inherently low growth
rates of supersonic and hypersonic shear layers.
11.5 Heat Transfer
The size, performance, and efciency of many engineering systems are often limited
by the ability to transfer heat to or from the system. Consider the supercomputer, for
which the speed of computing is limited by the distance through which the electrons
11.5 HEAT TRANSFER 241
must travel at nearly the speed of light. Electronic chips and other components must,
therefore, be miniaturized and packaged tightly. Tremendous amounts of heat must
be removed from a rather modest surface area. The central processing unit (CPU) of
a present-generation supercomputer is not much larger than, say, a refrigerator. To
limit the temperature of the CRAY2 to a tolerable range, its entire CPU is immersed
in a dielectric liquid coolant (trade name FC75). This is obviously an expensive, but
perhaps unavoidable, approach to achieving the desired goal.
If a boundary-layer-type ow is considered and radiation is neglected, the surface
heat loss per unit time due to the macroscopic motion of a uid is given by Newtons
law of cooling
q
s
=
f
A
T
y
y=0
+
= hA(T
s
T
o
) (11.12)
where
f
is the thermal conductivity of the uid, Ais the surface area, h is the convec-
tion heat-transfer coefcient that depends on the nature of the boundary layer and
uid motion as well as a host of uid thermodynamic and transport properties, T
s
is
the surface temperature, and T
o
is the uid temperature at the edge of the shear layer.
It is clear, then, that to maximize heat removal by convection, the surface area has
to be maximized using ns or inserts, for example; the convection coefcient has to
be maximized via secondary-ow generation, chaotic advection, early transition, or
turbulence enhancement; or the temperature difference between the solid surface and
the outer ow has to be maximized or a combination of these techniques needs to
be used. Identical arguments can be made regarding convective mass transfer. There
species concentration replaces temperature, and mass diffusion coefcient replaces
thermal conductivity.
Convective heat transfer enhancement methods were reviewed by Bergles and
Morton (1965), Bergles (1978, 1981, 1985), Webb et al. (1981), Bergles and Webb
(1985), Nakayama (1986),
Zukauskas (1986), Webb (1987, 1993), and Chang and
Sen (1995). The Journal of Enhanced Heat Transfer is devoted to the topic and
provides up-to-date references. The simplest scheme involves the introduction of
distributed roughness on the heat-transfer surfaces. This would destabilize the wall
region and intensify the mixing process, leading to an increase in the convection-
heat-transfer coefcient. Patera (1986) and Patera and Miki c (1986) introduced the
concept of resonant heat transfer enhancement based on excitation of shear-layer
instabilities in internal separated ows. In a two-dimensionally periodically grooved
channel, TollmienSchlichting-like waves forced by the KelvinHelmholtz shear layer
instabilities at the grooves edge become unstable and take the form of self-sustained
oscillations for Reynolds numbers greater than a critical value. For lower Re, oscil-
latory perturbations result in subcritical resonant excitation. For both laminar and
turbulent ows, the resulting large-scale motions lead to signicant lateral mixing
and correspondingly dramatic enhancement of convection heat transfer coefcient.
Other devices to enhance convective heat transfer in pipes include coil-spring wire
inserts, twisted tape inserts, and longitudinal and helical ribs. These artifacts intro-
duce additional no-slip surfaces as well as increase the momentum ux in a direction
transverse to the ow, leading to signicant pressure-drop penalty.
The secondary motion in the transverse plane of a coiled tube provides higher
heat transfer rates compared with straight tubes. The same geometry can of course
242 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
Figure 11.1: Secondary ow in a curved segment of a pipe.
be used to enhance the rate of mass transfer in chemical reactors, for example. The
Dean number is dened as
De
Re
2
a
R
(11.13)
where Re is the Reynolds number based on the bulk velocity and pipe diameter, a is
the radius of the cross section, and R is the radius of curvature. This dimensionless
parameter measures the curvature effects compared with viscous effects. At a critical
De, a secondary ow emerges in a curved pipe as a second stable laminar ow. Fluid
particles near the ow axis have higher velocity and hence are acted upon by a larger
centrifugal force than the slower particles in the vicinity of the wall. This results in
a pair of streamwise vortices with ow directed outwards in the center and inwards
(toward the center of curvature) near the wall, as indicated in Figure 11.1.
A material line initially perpendicular to the secondary upwelling is stretched
the most, albeit linearly, as it is advected downstream by the primary ow.
3
The
secondary ow causes faster or slower primary ow and corresponding higher or
lower shear stress near the outside or inside of the bend. The coiling leads to an
increase in the convection coefcient as well as the pressure drop. At higher Dean
numbers, other instabilities develop, and the ow eventually becomes turbulent.
There is no accompanying increase in surface area when a tube is coiled, and if the
Reynolds number (or more precisely the Dean number) is not too high, the ow
remains laminar.
4
The increase in Nusselt number or Sherwood number in this case
is typically more than the increase in pressure drop, making coiled tubes more useful
for practical heat exchangers and chemical reactors (Shah and Joshi 1987).
Forming even more twists in a coiled tube may generate tertiary ow that en-
hances the mixing even further. In a recent article, Knight (1999a) speculated that
the unusually complex plumbing patterns of human arteries, respiratory ducts, and
urinary tracts may have evolved for precisely this advantage. He then raised the in-
triguing possibility of improving on present heart bypassesin which a section of
blood vessel in the form of a planar arch is spliced into a coronary artery to divert
blood around a blockageusing instead twisted, nonplanar bypasses. The resulting
helical bypass, indicated schematically in Figure 11.2, may lead to improved mixing,
smoothing out the undesired shear-stress extremes at the outside and inside of the
3
Contrast this linear stretching to the exponential one associated with chaotic advection (Section 11.6).
4
In fact, the centrifugal forces accompanying tight coiling may be sufciently strong to relaminarize what
would otherwise be a turbulent pipe ow. The stabilizing inuence in this case is analogous to that in
stably stratied ows.
11.5 HEAT TRANSFER 243
Figure 11.2: Conventional planar bypass and proposed twisted bypass graft.
bend and thus discouraging the accumulation of fat, proteins, and cholesterol at the
junction to the large artery. The spiral bypass better resembles natural blood vessels
and may lower the risk of two common modes of graft failure: (1) plaque accumula-
tion at the dead spot in the blood stream where the graft meets the primary artery,
and (2) excessive division of muscle cells in the arterial wall, which is an abnormality
thought to be triggered or at least aggravated by the presence of high-shear-stress
regions.
In microdevices (see Chapter 13), both radiative and convective heat loss or gain
are enhanced by the huge surface-to-volume ratio. For a device with a characteristic
length of 1 m, this ratio is a million times that of a device having a length of 1 m.
Consider a device having a characteristic length L
s
. Use of the lumped capacitance
method to compute the rate of convective heat transfer, for example, is justied
if the Biot number (hL
s
/
s
, where h is the convection heat transfer coefcient
and
s
is the thermal conductivity of the solid) is less than 0.1. Small L
s
implies
small Biot number and a nearly uniform temperature within the solid. Within this
approximation, the rate at which heat is lost by the solid to the surrounding uid is
given by
s
L
3
s
c
s
dT
s
dt
= hL
2
s
(T
s
T
) (11.14)
where
s
and c
s
are respectively the density and specic heat of the solid, T
s
is its
244 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
(uniform) temperature, and T
T
i
T
= exp
t
T
(11.15)
where the time constant T is given by
T =
s
L
3
s
c
s
hL
2
s
(11.16)
For small devices, the time it takes the solid to cool down is proportionally small.
Clearly, the millionfold increase in surface-to-volume ratio implies a proportional
increase in the rate at which heat escapes. Identical scaling arguments can be made
regarding mass transfer.
11.6 Chaotic Mixing
Stirring by chaotic advection can be an attractive alternative for situations in which
turbulence is either not possible or not desired. Mixing of highly viscous uids or
designers not willing to pay the turbulence drag penalty are two such circumstances.
The idea here is to effect chaotic particle paths even for well-behaved velocity elds. A
group of adjacent particles in chaotic motion will tend to deviate exponentially from
each other, and this leads to substantial mixing with the surrounding uid in a much
shorter time than would be expected for regular motion. The resulting transport can
be more effective than that in ordinary laminar owseven those with superimposed
secondary motions. The concept of chaotic advection has been demonstrated theo-
retically, experimentally, and numerically for mass and energy transport. Chaotic
advection, or Lagrangian chaos, is possible for time-dependent, two-dimensional (or
three-dimensional) owelds as well as for steady three-dimensional ows.
Consider the diffusion equation for a passive scalar eld (x, t) having a constant
diffusivity D. In the Eulerian description, the partial differential equation that governs
the diffusion process is linear because the velocity eld is obtained independently from
the continuity and momentum equations. The diffusion equation with no source
terms reads
t
+u = D
2
(11.17)
where the advecting velocity eld u(x, t) is a prescribed function of the spatial coor-
dinates x and time t. In a turbulent ow, u is a random vector eld and therefore is
also expected to be random. But the surprising resultif one considers the linearity of
the governing equationis that the scalar eld can exhibit chaotic behavior even
for simple laminar ows. This was demonstrated rather elegantly by Aref (1984),
who coined the expression chaotic advection.
When the problem of a passively transported tracer is analyzed from a
Lagrangian viewpoint, the governing equations may be nonlinear and nonintegrable.
The resulting Lagrangian chaos is a spatial not a temporal one. Therefore, Eq. (11.17)
11.6 CHAOTIC MIXING 245
is not the proper dynamical system to represent the problem, and its linearity or lack
thereof is irrelevant to the chaotic behavior of . The velocity at a point may be
constant or periodic, whereas the passively transported scalar may be aperiodic (i.e.,
chaotic) in space. Consider the trajectories of individual advected particles
dX
dt
= u(x, y, z, t) (11.18)
dY
dt
= v(x, y, z, t) (11.19)
dZ
dt
= w(x, y, z, t) (11.20)
The initial conditions are X|
t=0
= X
o
. These equations describe a nite-dimensional
dynamical system and are the Lagrangian equivalent of Eq. (11.17) for the case
of zero diffusivity. Chaotic particle paths lead to chaotic spatial distribution of the
transported tracer.
The preceding equations are deterministicmeaning the forcing terms on the
right-hand side are not randomfor nonturbulent velocity elds. For steady, two-
dimensional ow, the streamlines and particle paths coincide.
5
The equations for
particle paths can in this case be written in terms of the streamfunction, (x, y),
X=
y
,
Y =
x
(11.21)
In the language of dynamical systems theory, the preceding are just Hamiltons canon-
ical equations for one degree of freedomand hence are integrable when autonomous.
Therefore, a regular velocity eld leads to regular passive scalar distribution. On the
other hand, if the two-dimensional oweld is time-dependent, however innocuous,
the nonautonomous Hamiltonian dynamical system can be nonintegrable, produc-
ing stochastic particle paths. Note that for plane ow, the phase-space ow of a
Hamiltonian dynamical systemcorresponds to the conguration-space motion of ad-
vected particles. For three-dimensional ows, steady and unsteady laminar velocity
elds can result in chaotic particle paths and therefore highly complex distribution of
the passively transported tracer. In the steady case, a regular three-dimensional veloc-
ity eld can produce chaotic particle paths and identically irregular streamlinesan
amazing counterintuitive effect. These results provide a remarkable contrast between
the Eulerian and Lagrangian representation of the same ow: regular Eulerian ow-
elds can, under the right circumstances, lead to highly irregular advection patterns.
Unlike the fractal dimension test, which can only be used in dissipative dynamical
systems, the Lyapunov exponent provides a quantitative criterion for the presence
of chaos in both conservative (Hamiltonian) and dissipative deterministic systems. A
positive exponent implies chaotic dynamics and measures the sensitivity of the system
to changes in its initial conditions. If the initial distance between two trajectories in
phase space is d
o
, at a small but later time the distance is on the average
d(t) = d
o
e
t
(11.22)
5
As they also do in steady, three-dimensional ows.
246 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
where is the Lyapunov exponent. In the mixing problem, the Lyapunov exponent
can be used to measure the rate at which an innitesimal uid volume is stretched.
Each dimension of the ow has an associated exponent, and for a conservative,
incompressible dynamical system, the sum of all exponents must be zero. For a
nonchaotic system, stretching occurs at a linear rate, and thus all Lyapunov exponents
must be zero. For a system that exhibits chaotic particle paths, the largest Lyapunov
exponent is positive, denoting exponential separation of neighboring particles. The
exponent must therefore be negative in at least one other dimension, implying a
diminution of length scale in that direction.
If the two-dimensional or three-dimensional laminar oweld is cleverly chosen,
the dynamical system (Eqs. (11.18)(11.20)) becomes nonintegrable with resulting
stochastic response in the Lagrangian advection characteristics of a passively trans-
ported tracer. In this case, a group of adjacent particles will tend to deviate exponen-
tially from one another, and this leads to substantial mixing with the surrounding
uid in a much shorter time than would be expected for regular motion. The re-
sulting tremendous stretching of nite uid regions paves the way for an enhanced
activity by diffusion owing to the availability of greater surface area and gradient for
the molecular processes. Despite the exponential divergence of neighboring states (in
phase space), the stretching (i.e., divergence of neighboring trajectories) and folding
(i.e., connement to bounded space) mechanism is necessary to keep chaotic trajec-
tories within a nite volume of phase space. The stretching and folding operation
corresponds to what is called in dynamical systems theory a horseshoe map. Chaotic
mixing can result from the breakup of homoclinic or hetroclinic loops into tangles.
Those entanglements result from repeated intersections of the stable and unstable
manifolds, giving rise to chaotic behavior. This causes a set of particles to be well
mixed spatially as it is advected by even an innocuous oweld.
The utility of chaotic advection has been demonstrated for mass as well as energy
transport. Chaotic mixing can be effected even at extremely low Reynolds or P eclet
numbers where turbulence is not a viable option, making the technique particularly
useful for a range of applications in chemical engineering, low-speed ows, heat
transfer, and materials processing. Because Lagrangian chaos can be achieved even
at extremely low speeds, the enhanced scalar transport is not necessarily associated
with enhanced momentum transport. This is a tremendous practical advantage. In
contrast, scalar transport enhancement by turbulence is often at the expense of signif-
icant pressure drop, skin-friction increase, or both, and therefore power expenditure.
Herein we recall just a few examples from the recent deluge of demonstrations.
The original analytical work in the eld of chaotic advection is, as indicated earlier,
attributable to Aref (1984), who also cited several earlier contributions by other
researchers. Aref idealized an incompressible, inviscid uid being stirred in a tank
using point vortex agitator(s). Together with their images in the bounding contour, the
agitators provide the source of unsteady potential ow. The motion is assumed wholly
two-dimensional. Aref (1984) demonstrated by way of a numerical integration of
the time-dependent version of Eq. (11.21) that chaotic particle motions are possible
for certain unsteady movements of the stirring vortex. Two protocols were used
to generate the successful unsteadiness: either a stirrer that jumps back and forth
between two xed positions or two stirrers at xed positions that are run alternately
for a given time interval. In either case, efcient stirring was achieved when chaotic
particle paths were generated using the successful protocol.
11.6 CHAOTIC MIXING 247
Ottino (1989a,b; 1990) detailed the body of analytical and experimental work
conducted by his research group. Chaotic mixing of miscible and immiscible uids
has been achieved in time-dependent creeping ows in two simple two-dimensional
geometries. The rst is the journal-bearing arrangement in which two eccentric cylin-
ders counterrotate alternately for a xed time period. The second geometry is a cavity
ow in which the upper and lower walls are forced to move alternatelyeach paral-
lel to itself but in opposite directionsusing two independently driven timing belts.
In both cases good mixing is achieved after just few periods for certain optimum
movement protocols.
Again, for the creeping ow between two counterrotating eccentric cylinders,
Ghosh et al. (1992) have computed the enhancement in the cross-stream heat (or
mass) transport associated with either a steady recirculation region or chaotic advec-
tion. As compared with pure conduction (or molecular diffusion), the steady-state
enhancement is proportional to the square root of a characteristic width of the re-
circulation region, but the effect diminishes as the P eclet number is lowered from its
asymptotic innite value. If time-periodic forcing is used to perturb the steady recir-
culation region, 100%time-averaged enhancement over pure diffusion is achieved at
the optimum forcing frequency, leading to homoclinic entanglement of the recircula-
tion regions bounding separatrices and hence to chaotic advection transport across
those separatrices.
To avoid the practical difculties of using time-periodic perturbations at a bound-
ary, Acharya, Sen, and Chang (1992) investigated analytically, numerically, and ex-
perimentally the possibility of effecting chaotic advection in helical pipes by spatial
periodicity in the downstream direction. Using as a base ow a conventional, xed-
axis coiled tube, they perturbed the customary secondary ow by periodic changes
in the coiling. One such perturbation is shown in Figure 11.3, where each successive
loop of the coil lies on a different, mutually perpendicular plane. Chaotic particle
paths are observed when the switching length exceeds the critical value of one-half of
the loop circumference. As compared with a conventional coiled tube using realistic
uids (i.e., nite Re, Pr, and Pe), the alternating-axis coiled heat exchanger lead-
ing to chaotic advection enhances the heat transfer by 68% with only a 1.52.5%
pressure-drop penalty. Heat transfer enhancement by chaotic advection is reviewed
by Chang and Sen (1995).
The same alternating-axis coiled tube shown in Figure 11.3 was investigated in
an analytical study directed toward enhancing the rate of mass transfer. Sawyers
et al. (1996) documented the benets of chaotic advection on the overall yield in a
slow, bimolecular chemical reaction. The two reactants are initially separated, and
the ow is assumed laminar and steady with high mass P eclet number. In a straight
tube, there is no ow in the transverse direction, and the interface separating the
two reactants does not change as the ow progresses downstream. Mixing in this
case is achieved solely by the very slow molecular diffusion process. Regular mixing
produced by the secondary transverse ow in a helical coil linearly stretches the
interface separating two reactants, leading to some improvement in mixing. Chaotic
mixing, by contrast, leads to an exponentially growing interface length that can be
related to a positive Lyapunov exponent. The area-averaged product mass fraction
increases proportionally in this case, leading to a much higher yield of the reaction.
Numerical solutions show that the enhancement by chaotic mixing also exists for
fast reactions.
248 MIXING ENHANCEMENT
Figure 11.3: Conventional coiled tube and alternating-axis tube.
In a different kind of three-dimensional geometry, Sawyers, Sen, and Chang
(1998) computationally investigated the heat transfer enhancement in the lami-
nar ow inside corrugated channels. They compared the regular mixing in two-
dimensional sinusoidal corrugations (with primary ow perpendicular to the corru-
gations) with the chaotic mixing resulting when the corrugations are sinusoidal in
two orthogonal directions. The conventional geometry and the egg-carton one are
11.6 CHAOTIC MIXING 249
Figure 11.4: Channels with (a) two-dimensional corrugations; (b) egg-
carton corrugations.
schematically depicted in Figure 11.4. As compared with at-plate heat exchangers,
the convection-heat-transfer coefcient is higher for the two-dimensional corruga-
tions because of the presence of recirculation zones. The three-dimensional corruga-
tions cause the boundary of those zones to be broken, thus allowing uid particles to
cross between the recirculation regions and the main ow. This allows heat transfer
across what was a barrier to advection in the two-dimensional corrugated chan-
nel. The resulting enhanced mixing reduces the uid temperature nonuniformities,
thereby steepening the temperature gradient near the boundaries and increasing the
heat transfer between the uid and the channel walls.
Finally, for readers desiring either a gentle primer or more detailed treatment, the
following books offer a broad range of sophistication and readability on the topics
of nonlinear dynamical systems theory, chaos and chaotic advection: Gleick (1987),
Ottino (1989a), Baker and Gollub (1990), Kim and Stringer (1992), Moon (1992),
Ott (1993), Aref and Naschie (1995), and Nayfeh and Balachandran (1995).
CHAPTER TWELVE
Noise Reduction
The root of the matter is that the greatest stimulus of scientic discovery
are its practical applications.
(Lewis Fry Richardson, 18811953)
However far modern science and technics have fallen short of their
inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson:
Nothing is impossible.
(Lewis Mumford, 18951990)
PROLOGUE
This chapter is concerned with noise suppression. Noise in the context of this book
is undesired soundparticularly that generated by a uid ow. Although tangential
to the primary topics of this monograph, noise control is an important and broad
topic and deserves, and is addressed in, its own books. Hence, the treatment here is
rather cursory and consists simply of introducing the topic and relating noise control
to other ow control topics discussed elsewhere in this book. Particularly for cold
subsonic ows, small-scale turbulence uctuations and unsteady ow oscillations,
either in free-shear modes or interacting with solid surfaces, provide the primary
sources for the ow-induced sound energy. For hot supersonic ows, the interaction
of the turbulence large eddies with the ow is the dominant noise source. In either
case, therefore, controlling the owmodulates the sound eld favorably or adversely.
The goal is of course to reduce noise pollution either for human comfort, for military
advantage, or for the prevention of violent structural vibrations. Both passive and
active control strategies can be employed to suppress ow-induced noise. This goal
can be realized by reducing the vibrations of solid surfaces, eliminating or suppressing
turbulence, or cleverly manipulating certain owinstabilities and coherent structures.
12.1 Introduction
Sound ordinarily refers to audible pressure uctuations in the ambient air. However,
sound can propagate as well in liquids and solids, and its frequencies can be lower
250
12.1 INTRODUCTION 251
(infrasonic waves below 20 Hz) or higher (ultrasonic waves above 20 kHz) than
those that can stimulate the human ear and brain to the sensation of hearing. Sound
can be a pleasant one like that emanating from a musical instrument in the hands
of a talented Homo sapiens. It can also be an unpleasant noise such as that radiated
from a jackhammer or an angry companion.
Sound can be generated by the vibrations of solid surfaces such as the strings
of violins and similar musical instruments or the diaphragms of loudspeakers. It
can also be generated by ow oscillations either directly or, more effectively, as a
result of interactions with solid surfaces. Unsteady addition or removal of heat can
also generate sound such as in singing ames. Noise is undesired sound, and the kind
generated as a result of uid owis of primary interest in this book. In 1952, Lighthill
focused on the sources of sound in the absence of vibrating surfaces and termed the
genre sound generated aerodynamically. The eld is now known as aeroacoustics
or, in water applications, hydroacoustics.
Audible sound levels vary over an enormous range, and therefore a relative log-
arithmic scale is typically used to express the sounds power, level of pressure uc-
tuations or intensity (energy ux or product of pressure and velocity perturbations).
Sound measured in decibels (dB) is computed from the relation: 10 log (X/Y), where
Xis either the sound power, the mean-square pressure uctuations, or the mean sound
intensity, and Y is a corresponding reference value typically related to the threshold
of hearing. More subjectively, sound can also be measured in phons, where a loud-
ness level of N phons is judged by the average ear to be as loud as a pure tone of
frequency 1 kHz at a sound-pressure level of NdB. There is also the sone scale, which
is a linear measure of loudness that is normalized so that 1 sone is a sound whose
loudness level is 40 phons. A sound of 10 sones is 10 times as loud as a sound of
1 sone, and the audible sounds lie in a range of 0100 sones. Finally, there is the
perceived noise decibel (PNdB), the A-weighted sound level (dBA), B-weighted, C-
weighted, . . . .
The envelope for man-made machines is continuously being pushed toward both
the miniature and the giant. As these machines become larger and more powerful,
their radiated, often unpleasant sound levels typically increase. Noise pollution is an
undesired byproduct of the present technological age, and efforts to minimize it must
always be considered in any eventual product. To place machine noise in perspective,
a human whisper involves acoustic power of roughly 10
10
watts (or 20 dB on the
relative logarithmic scale), a shout 10
5
w (70 dB), a jackhammer 1 w (120 dB),
a jet engine at takeoff 10
5
w (170 dB), and a sizable rocket at launch 10
7
w
(190 dB). Therefore, a single modern jet plane generates at takeoff more noise than the
combined shouting power of the entire worlds population. For humans, unprotected
exposure to sound levels above 100 dB for more than 15 minutes can cause hearing
damage, and permanent hearing loss results when exposed to sound levels above
110 dB. The threshold of pain is between 130 and 140 dB.
For some machines, like supersonic transport, noise control becomes one of the
limiting technologies. Out of concern for both air and noise pollution, the develop-
ment of commercial supersonic transport (SST) in the United States was summarily
halted in 1971 when the Congress voted to stop all further Federal funding for the
faster-than-sound aircraft. Though the Europeans and the Soviets proceeded, with
mixed success, to develop their own versions of SST, the United States has not yet
252 NOISE REDUCTION
recovered from that 30-year-old debacle. Noise control for jet engines remains a
formidable barrier to the successful development of supersonic as well as hypersonic
commercial aircraft.
Ultrasound is now used routinely in medicine to image tissues transparent to
X-rays and in nuclear power plants to test for cracks and structural integrity. More
relevant to this book, acoustic energy can be targeted toward certain ow regions
to control transition (Chapter 6) or separation (Chapters 8 and 9). But the focus
in this chapter is on attempting to reduce undesired ow-induced noise, not on the
use of sound to control the ow or to perform other useful tasks. As we attempt to
achieve other ow-control goals, however, the sound eld may be affected favorably
or adversely, and any unacceptable trade-off has to be scrutinized. Noise suppression
may of course be the primary control goal, and the effect of that on drag, lift, mixing,
and so forth, also has to be considered.
The main objective of this chapter is to introduce the topic of ow-induced noise
and to describe a variety of passive and active strategies to reduce noise pollution
either for human comfort, for military advantage, or for preventing violent structural
vibrations. Understanding the sources of noise is an essential step toward devising
ways to suppress the noise, and the chapter will start with a brief discussion of the
fundamentals of acoustics and sources of sound.
The following sections merely scratch the surface of the important eld of noise
control. Readers who desire more information can consult the numerous journal
articles available in the eld appearing in, for example, the Journal of Sound and
Vibration, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Archives of Acoustics Quar-
terly, and Journal of Vibration and Acoustics. A more gentle indoctrination in the
topic can be had, however, by reading the books by, among others, Dowling and
Ffowcs Williams (1983), Blake (1986), Bolton (1988), Wilson (1989), Foreman
(1990), Tokhi and Leitch (1992), Atassi (1993), and Fung (1994). The proceedings
and the two periodicals Noise/News and Noise Control Engineering Journal pub-
lished by the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of the United States of America
provide a wealth of information for the practically oriented. More fundamentally,
the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics has published 11 articles related to aero-
and hydroacoustics in its rst 30 volumes. Finally, the pioneering articles on sound
generated aerodynamically authored by Sir James Lighthill can all conveniently be
found in volume III of his collected work (Hussaini 1997).
12.2 Fundamentals of Acoustics
Sound is pressure perturbations that are transmitted in a compressible mediumas suc-
cessive compressive and rarefaction waves. Sound waves are longitudinal, mechanical
waves; in other words, the material particles transmitting such a wave oscillate in
the direction of propagation of the wave itself, and the waves carry energy and thus
require a source of some sort. The elastic nature of the mediumcauses the vanishingly
weak pressure pulses to propagate while maintaining quasi-thermodynamic equilib-
rium adiabatically (i.e., isentropically) and essentially with no viscous losses. Sound
can, of course, propagate, reect, refract, scatter and dissipate in gases, liquids and
solids, but propagation through uids is the primary concern here.
12.2 FUNDAMENTALS OF ACOUSTICS 253
Acoustic disturbances are nearly always small, which allows linearization
of the governing equations.
1
For example, the root-mean-square of the pressure
perturbations at the threshold of hearing is 2 10
10
atmospheres, and at the
threshold of pain is 2 10
3
atm. Consider a still uid having uniform pressure p
o
and density
o
. Sound perturbs this eld such that
p(x, t) = p
o
+ p
(x, t) (12.1)
(x, t) =
o
+
(x, t) (12.2)
u
k
(x, t) = 0 +v
k
(x, t) (12.3)
where v
k
(x, t) is the minute uid particle velocity due to the passage of sound waves.
It can easily be shown (e.g., Moran and Shapiro 1995) that the rate of propagation
of an innitesimal pressure pulse, the so-called speed of sound, in an otherwise still
substance is given by
a
2
o
=
o
o
o
=
(12.4)
where
o
is the ratio of specic heats, and
o
is the isothermal compressibility coef-
cient (dened in Chapter 2), both of which are computed at the uniform ambient
conditions. The derivative p/ is computed at constant entropy. Because the en-
tropy is constant, the pressure and all other thermodynamic properties can be con-
sidered as a function of a single variable; for example, p = p() only. In other words,
sound is a disturbance in which the pressure can be determined from a knowledge of
the density alone. The sound speed is itself a thermodynamic property whose value
depends on the state of the medium through which sound propagates. For an ideal
gas,
o
= 1/p
o
and therefore a
o
=
o
RT
o
, and the sound speed depends only on
the gas type and its temperature. Owing to the much higher pressures required for
liquids to change their volumes, the speed of sound in liquids is generally higher than
in gases and higher yet than in solids. For a bubbly liquid, however, the speed of
sound can be much lower than in either the gas or liquid alone.
We now restrict the discussion to uids only. To develop the equation govern-
ing the propagation of sound waves, we start with the exact conservation relations
for a continuum uid (Chapter 2). In a Eulerian frame, the continuity equation in
differential form reads
t
+
x
k
(u
k
) = 0 (12.5)
and Newtons second law reads
t
(u
k
) +
x
i
(u
i
u
k
) =
ik
x
i
+g
k
(12.6)
1
Each of the simplifying features implemented here can of course be violated under certain unusual
circumstances. For example, viscous effects become important when sound propagates over very long
distances, and sound levels of 194 dB generate a not-too-small pressure uctuations of 1 atm. There
is also the issue of sound generated aerodynamically being strong enough to back-react with the uid
motions producing it. Nonlinear acoustics and other unusual effects are beyond the scope of this chapter.
254 NOISE REDUCTION
where is the uid density, u
k
is an instantaneous velocity component,
ik
is the
stress tensor (surface force per unit area), and g
k
is the body force per unit mass.
The stress tensor can be split into two parts, hydrostatic pressure and normal and
tangential viscous stresses
ik
= p
i k
+
i k
(12.7)
For the weak acoustic perturbations, we linearize Eqs. (12.5) and (12.6) and
neglect viscous and gravity forces.
2
The resulting mass and momentum conservation
equations read, respectively,
t
+
o
v
k
x
k
= 0 (12.8)
o
v
k
t
+
p
x
k
= 0 (12.9)
If the velocity perturbation is eliminated by taking /x
k
of Eq. (12.9) and the result
is subtracted from /t of Eq. (12.8),
t
2
2
p
x
k
x
k
= 0 (12.10)
and Eq. (12.4) is used to eliminate the density and to yield nally the wave equation
for pressure perturbations
2
p
t
2
a
2
o
2
p
x
k
x
k
= 0 (12.11)
This is a hyperbolic partial differential equation that describes the propagationat
the constant speed of sound a
o
of pressure perturbations in an otherwise still uid.
Identical equations can be written for all the other small quantities describing the
acoustic eld; for example, density perturbations (
=p
/a
2
o
), velocity v, and velocity
potential ( p
=
o
t
).
3
12.3 Sources of Sound
Sound is small pressure perturbations organized into wavessound waves. If we
insist that sound must not anticipate its cause or in other words that information
about the current source activity should not be contained in past waves that anticipate
the present,
4
the homogenous equation (12.11) in the absence of boundaries has
2
The relevant Reynolds number is 2a
o
/, and is of the order of 10
8
in air at the most audible frequency
but is much higher in water. Hence, viscous forces can be safely neglected for sound propagation over
distances much less than 2a
o
/ wavelengths. The relevant Froude number square is a
2
o
/g, and
therefore gravity is neglected for sound waves with wavelength 12 km (in air) or 200 km (in water),
which is a condition that is readily satised for most waves.
3
For one-dimensional sound waves, the particle velocity is given by v = p
/
o
a
o
, and v satises the
one-dimensional version of the wave equation.
4
This important principle is called the causality condition and in simple elds is indistinguishable from
the radiation condition, which states that in open space, only outward-traveling waves can have any
real existence.
12.3 SOURCES OF SOUND 255
only one solution: p
t
2
=
2
t
2
=
2
x
i
x
k
(u
i
u
k
ik
) (12.12)
Subtracting
a
2
o
x
k
x
k
=
2
x
i
x
k
a
2
o
i k
(12.13)
from both sides of Eq. (12.12), we reach the desired inhomogenous equation for
sound
t
2
a
2
o
x
k
x
k
=
2
T
ik
x
i
x
k
(12.14)
where T
ik
=u
i
u
k
i k
+ p
i k
a
2
o
i k
, the Lighthill stress tensor, and we have used
Eq. (12.7).
In effect, we have rearranged the governing equations to isolate a linear wave
operator, the remaining terms being treated as a source that drives the wave motion.
The source eld for the acoustic waves is a quadrupole distribution whose instan-
taneous strength per unit volume is the tensor T
ik
. The double divergence structure
of the right-hand side of Eq. (12.14) indicates a double tendency for destructive in-
terference and reveals the quadrupole nature of the source term. Contributions to
the instantaneous Lighthill stress tensor come from normal and tangential Reynolds
stresses, normal and tangential viscous stresses, and the difference between the ac-
tual hydrostatic pressure in the active ow region and that which would prevail in a
uniform acoustic medium at rest. In the sound eld proper, p
a
2
o
, the weak ow
is inviscid and the Reynolds stress is second order in the small-velocity uctuations.
In other words, T
ik
0 outside the active ow region. Inside though, strong heat-
ing or cooling, pressure forces on a rigid body moving relative to the ow, viscous
stresses, and turbulent uctuations can all be sources of aerodynamic sound. The
density uctuations in the real ow are exactly those that would occur in a uniform
acoustic medium subject to an external stress system given by the difference between
the effective stresses in the real ow and the stresses in the uniform acoustic medium
at rest.
Consider an observer located in the far eld at x, the solution of Eq. (12.14) reads
(x, t) =
2
x
i
x
k
V
T
ik
y, t
|xy|
a
o
4a
2
o
|x y|
dV (12.15)
The integration is carried out for all sources located in the ow region at y. Every
quadrupole element at y generates a eld that travels out at the speed of sound,
reaching the observer at x at a time |x y|/a
o
later (Figure 12.1). The effect of each
source element falls off inversely as the distance traveled |x y|.
The integration above can in principle be carried out if the Lighthill stress tensor
T
ik
is known. For incompressible turbulent ows, this tensor is dominated by the
258 NOISE REDUCTION
instantaneous Reynolds stress u
i
u
k
, a random quantity that in general is unknown
analytically and is very difcult to measure. Therefore, heuristic models, based on
a combination of experimental data, computations, and theoretical concepts, or
simple dimensional analysis is used to estimate the sound eld. For example, Lighthill
(1952, 1954) estimated the mean-square value of the radiated sound eld froma cold
subsonic jet to be
2
2
o
Ma
8
D
2
|x|
2
, Ma 1 (12.16)
where Ma is the Mach number based on the jet-exit velocity; the ambient sound speed,
D, is its diameter; and |x| is the distance between the jet exit and the observer. The
small Mach number makes it possible to assume a compact source (D Ma ,
where is the characteristic wavelength of the generated sound) and greatly simplies
the dimensional analysis. Basically, for a compact source, the variation of retarded
time as y ranges over all the source volume in the integral (12.15) is ignored, in effect
making the source distribution equivalent to a point quadrupole.
Mercifully, less than 0.01%of the turbulence kinetic energy is converted to acous-
tic energy, and this percentage diminishes as the Mach number drops further from
unity.
5
At low Mach numbers, jets as well as all compact sources are acoustically
very inefcient, and
2
Ma
8
. The presence of a rigid surface, of much higher den-
sity than the surrounding uid,
6
in the ow proper is equivalent to a distribution of
dipoles and increases the sound-generation efciency so that
2
Ma
6
. For exible
bodies capable of dilating, the resulting monopole singularities lead to an even more
efcient sound generation, and
2
Ma
4
. And nally, for compressible turbulent
jets, the source region can no longer be considered compact, the structure of the
sound eld is dominated by retarded time variations over the source region, and the
number of eddies that can be heard at any one time increases linearly with the Mach
number. In this case, the mean-square value of the radiated sound eld is estimated
to be a much higher
2
Ma
3
. These dimensional analysis results are well conrmed
with experiments.
The Lighthill acoustic analogy provides reasonable predictions for subsonic free-
shear ows and for noise mechanisms associated with the nearly steady aerodynamic
loading of turbomachinery blades. The alternative stochastic wave model more re-
cently developed by Tam (1995) allows direct calculations of sound radiation with-
out recourse to the acoustic analogy. The semiempirical stochastic model theory has
been successful in predicting jet noise when Mach waves are radiated (as a result
of the supersonic convection speeds of large-eddy structures) or when broadband
shock-associated noise results from the passage of large-scale structures through the
shock-cell pattern in imperfectly expanded supersonic jets. We will return to su-
personic jet noise mechanisms in the next section where, armed with knowledge of
aerodynamic sound sources, we discuss methods to suppress ow-induced noise for
both low-speed and high-speed ows.
5
The acoustic efciency is the ratio of acoustic power radiated to jet power delivered. For subsonic jets,
10
4
Ma
5
.
6
Nekton, having about the same density as their surrounding uid, swim in water outstandingly more
quietly than the heavier-than-air avian species can y in air.
12.4 NOISE CONTROL 259
12.4 Noise Control
Noise suppression involves the reduction of noise sources efciency and ability to
convert kinetic energy to sound power, the interruption of sound transmission, the
accelerated dissipation of acoustic energy into heat, or the active cancellation of
sound waves using out-of-phase waves. These strategies can be implemented by a
variety of passive, active, and reactive devices ranging in complexity from simple ear
plugs to sophisticated antisound systems.
Unhealthy noise pollution is easier to quantify than what is considered a mere
annoyance. Unprotected exposure to sound levels above 110 dB can result in per-
manent hearing loss. Sound that merely irritates, on the other hand, is obviously a
subjective matter at any level. For most people, save teenagers, sound levels above
90 dB are uncomfortable and distracting. Noise containing discernible pure tones
is, however, more likely to invoke a negative response than broadband noise of the
same level. The screech tones radiating from imperfectly expanded supersonic jets
can be maddening.
Noise control, a relatively young eld of research, is required to maintain an ac-
ceptable or even pleasant environment, to avoid detection of certain aquatic vessels,
to facilitate the proper operation of sonars on underwater vehicles, and nally to pre-
vent violent structural vibrations. Heckl (1988) broadly classied noise suppression
methods into four categories:
o
a
o
1 =sound waves are mostly reected
m
o
a
o
1 =sound waves are mostly transmitted
Low-frequency sound gets through all but the most massive walls.
Sound-absorbent coatings are made either of porous material or perforated ma-
terial and are often used to dissipate acoustic energy. In the case of porous material
like foam or expanded polystyrene, the passage of sound waves causes the air in-
side the pores to vibrate. The extremely narrow channels cause a large resistance
to the uid motion and the dissipation of sound energy into heat. Additional en-
ergy losses result from the heat exchange between the heated, compressed air or the
cooled, rareed air inside the pores and the solid skeleton. Perforated materials typ-
ically consist of a porous surface glued to a honeycomb structure and are designed
to create beer-bottle-like geometries (i.e., numerous Helmholtz resonators). There,
resonant-frequency pressure perturbations at the neck produce large velocities in the
resonator. Again, large velocity in a narrow passage results in considerable viscous
dissipation and reduction of acoustic energy. The depth of the perforations and the
volume of the backing cavities can be optimized to resonate in the middle of the
frequency range, where sound attenuation is desired.
Mufers are typically used to quiet exhaust pipes in internal combustion engines.
A mufer usually consists of inlet and outlet pipes of equal diameters and an expan-
sion chamber between them. The area ratio and the length of the expansion chamber
determine the mufer transmission loss, and the chamber length is tuned so that
maximum attenuation occurs at the dominant frequencies of the incoming sound.
Silencers are similar devices used in ducts or uid intakes in industrial applications.
The sound energy in mufers and silencers is conserved. Any reduction in the trans-
mitted wave energy must be coupled to a corresponding increase in the reected
energy. Both passive devices typically employ a combination of sound-absorbent
materials designed to convert the high-frequency component of the noise into me-
chanical vibration and heat and destructive interference between the transmitted and
reected waves in the expansion chamber for the lower range of frequencies. The
sound-absorbent material results in a net reduction in acoustic energy. Mufers and
silencers can also utilize Helmholtz resonators attached to the side of the duct and
optimized to suppress noise in a narrow range of frequencies.
12.4 NOISE CONTROL 263
12.4.3 Compliant Coatings
Fluidstructure interaction is particularly important in underwater noise radiation
owing to the relatively high density and bulk modulus of water. In contrast to a rigid
wall, a compliant wall is sufciently soft to deform elastically as a result of the
pressure and viscous forces of a moving uid. From a fundamental viewpoint, a rich
variety of uidstructure interactions exist when a uid ows over a surface that
can comply with the ow. The transverse wave speed in the solid (square root of the
ratio of the wall modulus of rigidity and its density) relative to a characteristic ow
speed determines the degree of compliance of the wall; a value below one indicates
a compliant wall. Not surprisingly, instability modes proliferate when two wave-
bearing media are coupled. Some waves are ow-based, some are wall-based, and
some are a result of the coalescence of both kind of waves. A compliant coating can
in principle be designed to achieve desired ow traits such as transition delay, noise
suppression, and lower skin-friction drag in turbulent ow. The topic is thoroughly
discussed in Chapter 7.
A compliant coating that causes transition delay or reduction in turbulence skin
friction will also lead to attenuation of sound radiated by the boundary layer. This
is because the wall-pressure uctuations are dependent on turbulence levels, which
in turn are related to the wall shear stress. The reverse is not necessarily true (i.e., a
coating may attenuate the ow noise without affecting the hydrodynamic drag). In
fact, the technology exists today for manufacturing energy-absorbent compliant lin-
ers for sound absorption, vibration reduction, and noise shielding, whereas the search
for drag-reducing coatingparticularly for turbulent owshas thus far eluded re-
searchers for about 50 years (Riley et al. 1988; Gad-el-Hak 1996a). As mentioned
earlier, a submarine hull vibrates as a result of the surface forces in the surround-
ing ow or as a result of vibrations in other parts of the vessel such as its power
plant. The hull vibrations are an effective source of radiated sound and can readily
be detected by sonars far away. A properly designed compliant coating can act as
an effective attenuator of hull vibrations and therefore reduce the likelihood of det-
ection.
Flow noise is inuenced by surface exibility through two distinct mechanisms:
either the surface acts as a sounding board excited by the turbulent pressure eld
or the surface compliance induces a change in the turbulence structure and, hence,
modies the pressure uctuations (Ffowcs Williams 1965; Purshouse 1976; Dowling
1983, 1986). As mentioned earlier, ow-induced noise is currently considered the
limiting performance factor for sonar systems placed on surface ships, submarines,
and towed arrays. Major advances in the reduction of self-noise have been achieved
by exploiting the rst mechanism above, and further reductions may be possible if
the nature of the turbulent boundary layer and its wall-pressure uctuations can be
altered. Von Winkle (1961) and Barger and von Winkle (1961) reported pressure
uctuation measurements on a streamlined body of revolution free-falling in a wa-
ter tank. Flush-mounted hydrophones fabricated from lead-zirconate titanite were
used to measure the instantaneous pressure. Their experiment indicated a dramatic
reduction in the pressure coefcient when the body was covered with a Kramer-
type compliant coating (see Chapter 7). This result may, however, have been due to
transition delay caused by the exible surface and not the changes in the turbulence
structure.
264 NOISE REDUCTION
12.4.4 Jet Noise
The quest to power commercial aircraft with ever more powerful jet engines
has, in large measure, inuenced noise suppression research for the last half century.
Inspecting Eq. (12.16) reveals the strong dependence of the noise levels from cold
subsonic jets on the Mach number and a weaker dependence on the jet diameter. This
leads to what is by far the most powerful strategy to reduce jet noise: by reducing
the jet velocity with a reciprocal increase in diameter to maintain a given thrust, the
resulting noise reduction is proportional to the sixth power of velocity. The acoustic
efciency is the ratio of acoustic power radiated to jet power delivered and varies as
Ma
5
. By means of the downward trend in Mach number, jet engines of ever larger
diameter have permitted an increase in engine power to be delivered at community-
acceptable noise levels. Even at a prescribed thrust, there are of course weight and
drag penalties when larger engines are utilized, and these have to be weighed carefully
against the benet (or necessity) of lower noise levels.
Turbojet engines with bypass reconcile the need to achieve high Carnot efciency
while maintaining a good Froude efciency, so to speak. Jet engines were designed
as early as the 1950s with a 40% bypass ratio. Part of the energy of the gas coming
out of the combustion chamber was used to impel a surrounding additional 40% of
the air mass, which bypassed the combustion process altogether. For a given thrust
and engine efciency, the sound energy was reduced at this bypass ratio by a factor
of 5 (7 dB). For even more gain, higher bypass ratios are sought in modern designs.
Though they work in practice, there are some questions about the exact reasons
why high-bypass-ratio engines have less noise than conventional engines. There is
a reduction in the global Mach number of the jet and a concomitant reduction in
radiated noise. Additionally, bypass air reduces the shear magnitude between the
high-speed primary air and the freestream air. This in turn reduces the turbulence
energy production and thus radiated sound. Because of the difference in tempera-
tures of the hot primary air, the cooler bypass air, and the cold freestream, there
is, however, a strong shear in Mach number (but not velocity) between the primary
and bypass air and a strong shear in velocity (but not Mach number) between the
bypass and freestream air. It appears that the Mach number is more critical to the
sound generation, but the detailed measurements have not been done yet to pinpoint
the sources of the sound. Therefore, at present the improvements in sound levels are
semiempirical without knowledge of the precise causes.
There are two other techniques to reduce noise from subsonic jets, often utilized
simultaneously. Neither strategy is suited for high-bypass-ratio engines. The use of
either a multinozzle noise suppressor (e.g., Pratt & Whitney engines powering some
Boeing 707s) or deeply corrugated jet exit (e.g., RollsRoyce engines powering some
Boeing 707s) benets from both the so-called shielding principle and a reduction
of the quadrupole intensity. The shielding principle (Lighthill 1962) states that if
an observer is listening to a jet noise and is placed near the peak of its directional
distribution, then the presence of another jet behind the rst, shielded fromhis or her
line of direct observation, does not signicantly increase the noise heard. The reason
is the scattering of the far jet noise by the near jet ow, which causes a directional
redistribution of the noise from the far jet and shifts its direction of peak intensity.
In effect, the far jet sound is heard at a directional average, not at a peak value.
In addition to the shielding effect, both the multinozzle jet and corrugated-exit jet
12.4 NOISE CONTROL 265
result in a shorter extent of the mixing layer, bringing the adjustment region where
turbulence intensities begin to decrease closer to the orice, and a reduced relative
shear between the jet and the ambient air, which suppresses the turbulence intensities
in the mixing region. These advantages effectively reduce the quadrupole intensity
and thus the radiating sound. The total noise reduction in both the Pratt & Whitney
and RollsRoyce engines is around 10 dB, whereas the weight, thrust, and drag
penalties resulting from the special noise-suppression designs are each around
0.7%. These penalties reduce the aircraft height above a typical community-noise
measuring point, adversely affecting the radiated noise by less than 1 dB.
Both ne-scale and large-scale coherent structures in turbulent ows are capable
of generating noise. However, the relative importance of the noise they produce
depends on the jet Mach number and uid temperature. Noise from cold subsonic
jets is caused primarily by the small-scale structures. Unless the jet is very hot,
7
the
turbulence convection Mach number, relative to the ambient sound speed, is below
one, and the large eddies are ineffective noise generators. In contrast to subsonic jets,
large-scale structures are the primary source of noise in hot supersonic jets. In this
case, the large turbulence structures convect downstreamat supersonic Mach number
relative to the ambient sound speed. The supersonic eddies are capable of producing
intense Mach wave radiation, which easily predominates over the noise from ne-
scale turbulence. The resulting broadband sound is called turbulence mixing noise,
and it radiates in the downstream direction. Tams (1995) stochastic instability wave
model treats the large coherent structures as being statistically equivalent to the
instability waves of the jet. These waves in turn are considered as a wavy wall
having the same wavelength and wave speed as the instability waveabove which the
supersonic ow convects and generates intense Mach (sound) waves that propagate
in a preferred downstream direction. The Mach angle can be computed readily from
the phase velocity c
p
of the most amplied instability wave and the ambient sound
speed a
o
: = sec
1
Ma
c
= sec
1
c
p
a
o
, where Ma
c
is the convective Math number.
Most supersonic jets are imperfectly expanded, and this leads to the formation
of a pattern of oblique shocks or expansion fans and two additional mechanisms
for noise generation. For an underexpanded jet, an expansion fan is initiated at the
nozzle lip to allow the gradual reduction of static pressure to ambient conditions.
For an overexpanded jet, an oblique shock is formed at the lip to allow the abrupt
increase in static pressure to match that outside the jet. Once formed, the expansion
fan or shock wave is convected downstream until impinged on the mixing layer on
the other side. The subsonic ow outside the jet cannot support either a shock or an
expansion fan, and hence both have to reect back into the jet plume. This process is
repeated many times, forming a quasi-periodic pattern of shocks or expansions fans.
The shock-cell pattern may be regarded as disturbances trapped inside the jet by the
mixing layer at the peripheral. The jet owbehaves as a waveguide to the disturbances
forming the shock pattern, which in turn leads to the two shock-associated sources
of noise described below.
Both broadband shock noise and discrete screech tones result from the passage
of large-scale structures through the shock-cell pattern. In contrast to the turbulence
mixing noise, the two shock-associated sounds radiate primarily in the upstream
7
The jet Mach number based on the local sound speed in the hot uid is lower than the acoustically more
relevant Mach number based on the sound speed in the cold ambient uid.
266 NOISE REDUCTION
direction. The broadband shock-associated noise is produced as a result of the con-
structive scattering of the large eddies by the shock cells in the jet plume. Because
the quasi-periodic shock pattern can be conceived as made up of a superposition of
waveguide modes of different wavelengths, each mode scatters sound in a preferred
(upstream) direction. The screech noise is due to an acoustic feedback phenomenon.
Here acoustic disturbances impinging on the nozzle lipwhere the mixing layer is
thin and receptive to external excitationexcite the intrinsic instability modes of
the jet. The resulting waves convect downstream, gain strength, and interact with
the aforementioned shock-cell pattern. The unsteady interaction generates acoustic
waves that propagate upstream outside the jet and upon reaching the lip region close
the feedback loop. The resulting sound is intense at a particular fundamental fre-
quency, the screech tone frequency, and can sometimes be heard up to the fourth or
fth harmonic.
Noise radiated from supersonic jet engines cannot be reduced by simply increas-
ing their size and thus reducing their Mach number, as done in subsonic jets. Extra-
wide supersonic engines would generate unacceptable shock-wave drag as well as
supersonic-boomemissions. Systems to suppress noise in supersonic jets are generally
more complex than their subsonic counterparts, making noise control a formidable
barrier to the successful development of supersonic as well as hypersonic commercial
aircraft. Improved mixing in supersonic jets breaks up their large-scale structures and
has invariably the benecial side effect of substantial noise reduction. Enhanced mix-
ing devices include ejectors, taps, acoustically treated mixers and ejectors, and uncon-
ventional nozzle geometries. Rectangular and triangular jets radiate less noise than
circular jets at high subsonic and supersonic speeds (Ahuja, Hayden, and Entrekin
1993; Rice and Raman 1993). Jet engine exhausts are scalloped to reduce the scale
of their coherent structures and hence reduce the radiated noise. An active strategy to
accomplish a similar feat involves forcing the jet acoustically to cause the natural train
of unequally spaced vortex rings to become more uniform. The formation of larger
scales is thus delayed, leading to a reduction of the jet spreading rate as well as radi-
ated noise (Hussain and Hasan 1985). To reduce the shock-associated broadband and
screech noise, researchers have attempted to produce shock-free supersonic plumes
with nonaxisymmetric distributions of exit-plane momentum thickness or to create
jets that are excited by oscillating control devices or by feedback of time-dependent
disturbances within the initial jet column.
12.4.5 Turbomachinery Blades
The noise radiated from fans, propellers, turbofans, propfans, turbine blades,
and the like is dominated by a series of pure tones whose fundamental is the basic
rotational frequency multiplied by the number of blades. Any uctuations generated
by the turbulent ow itself are merely the high-frequency noise background to the
pure tones and their harmonics. The turbomachine thrust and torque result from the
blades periodic forces acting on the uid. These forces are acoustically equivalent to
a distribution of dipoles. The turbomachine disk diameter is typically comparable to
the generated acoustic wavelength, and thus the sound source cannot be treated as
compact, thus complicating the use of the acoustic analogy to compute the radiated
noise.
Upstream nonuniformities are caused by atmospheric gusts, inlet distortions,
blade tip vortices, rotor-stator wake interactions, interactions between blade rows,
12.4 NOISE CONTROL 267
and so forth. In the blade frame of reference, these nonuniformities appear as con-
vected vortical waves and induce unsteady forces on the blade surfaces, causing
forced vibrations and radiation of additional broadband as well as harmonic noise
components. If the frequency of this aerodynamic excitation matches the turboma-
chine natural frequency, the forced vibration can be destructive. The high-frequency,
broadband noise due to vortex shedding and lift uctuations on high-speed blades
is even more problematic to compute as compared with the pure tones. In hydrody-
namic applications, the length scale associated with blade-row interactions is small
compared with the wavelength of the radiated sound, and the source can therefore be
treated as acoustically compact, making the use of the Lighthills analogy convenient.
As in jets, here also the objective is to reduce the noise levels without compro-
mising the machine performance measured, for example, in terms of thrust per unit
of airow (specic thrust) or thrust per unit of engine weight. Making the turbo-
machine larger while reducing the rotational frequency of its blades does lead to a
reduction of radiated noise but adds weight, space, and drag penalties. Noise related
to the uctuating forces on the blades can be suppressed by reducing those uctua-
tions or by attenuating the radiated sound through the engine intake. McCune and
Kerrebrock (1973) maintained that the perceived noise can be reduced by (a) reduc-
ing the radiated power, (b) shifting the radiated power to a frequency at which the ear
is less sensitive or where attenuation is more rapid, and (c) changing the directivity
pattern. They provided useful analysis of the performance penalties associated with
noise reduction in turbomachines.
12.4.6 Antisound
In addition to passive devices, noise control can also be accomplished actively
or reactively. Both of these strategies require energy expenditure. An example of
predetermined active control is the forced oscillations applied to a jet exit to equalize
the spacing between successive vortex ring instabilities (see Section 12.4.4). A second
example of active control is the beaming of a continuous broadband noise in an ofce
space to mask other intrusive sounds such as conversation in an adjacent cubicle. The
result of masking is an increase in the noise level, but the subjective effect may be
a reduction in annoyance. Reactive sound control is often termed antisound and is
designed to reduce the noise levels, but the reactive systemis quite a bit more involved
than a mere predetermined active control system.
Reactive noise suppression systems are based on generating sound by auxiliary
source with such an amplitude and phase that, in the region of interest, the sound
wave interference from the original and auxiliary source results in considerable re-
duction of the noise levels. What makes these systems possible is, of course, the
linearity of the governing equations and the consequent validity of the principle of
superposition. Though the idea can perhaps be traced to the 1950s, signicant ad-
vances in antisound were not made until the 1980s by, especially, Ffowcs Williams
(1984). In principle, it is possible to cancel an existing sound eld by introducing a
newsound eld of equal amplitude and opposite phase. The elements of an antisound
system consist of sensors to measure the existing eld, acoustic sources to produce
the antisound, and microprocessor-based controllers that utilize inputs from the sen-
sors to determine the appropriate output signals. These systems work best to cancel
low-frequency sound. For higher-frequency sound, additional acoustic modes can
propagate as well as disperse, complicating the application of the antisound concept.
268 NOISE REDUCTION
Fortunately, passive devices work well at high frequencies, and a combined system
may be able to suppress most of the noise.
The earliest application of antisound involved the reduction of fan noise in ducts.
We cite here a few more recent examples. Rotating stall instability in axial compres-
sors has been successfully controlled by active methods. Delay of surge in gas turbine
engines has been demonstrated, allowing a signicant increase in power beyond the
surge boundary for uncontrolled engines. The uttering of a exible wing in a wind
tunnel has been successfully stabilized by activating a wall-mounted loudspeaker.
Other existing or potential applications include reduction of cabinet noise in aircraft
and automobiles, combustion chambers in jet engines, electric power transformers,
diesel engines, electric motors, pumps, compressors, and other turbomachinery. The
pilots of the Voyager aircraft, which completed the rst nonstop, nonrefueled ight
around the world in December 1986, used an active-noise-control communications
headset system.
The older antisound systems with xed gain in the feedback loop could not achieve
high noise reduction. However, with the recent availability of adaptive lter systems,
much more impressive suppression of noise is feasible (Tichy, Warnaka, and Poole
1984). These systems are capable of adjusting the feedback loop for the magnitude
and phase relationship of the spectral components and can quickly compensate for
the sound path changes. These reactive-control devices seem to work best for low-
frequency sound, for which passive silencers are relatively ineffective, and when
the source is localized and accessible. Local control is obviously easier than global.
Moreover, effective control is achieved when the systemresponse within the frequency
band of interest is dominated by relatively few modes.
Combustion chambers often act as acoustic resonators, and attempts to increase
their density of energy release can lead to undesired combustion instabilities that can
be violent enough to quench the ame or even to cause structural damage. When
low-energy antisound systems were applied to combustion chambers to reduce the
noise generated by the combustion instabilities, both the sound eld and those buzz
instabilities were suppressed, dramatically improving the chamber performance. It
is conceivable that properly designed antisound systems can repeat this success in
other uid-ow situations in which instabilities contribute to the radiated sound as
well as limit performance. Review papers on active control of noise are available by
Warnaka (1982); Ericksson et al. (1988); Van Laere and Sas (1988); and Warner,
Waters, and Bernhard (1988). Antisound techniques seem to have gone from the
laboratory to application and commercialization in a remarkably short time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Microelectromechanical Systems
If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth studying it. And life
would not be worth living.
(Jules Henry Poincar e, 18541912)
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
(Albert Einstein, 18791955)
PROLOGUE
This chapter provides background material on an essential element of the targeted
ow-control strategy to be detailed in Chapter 14. Manufacturing processes that
can create extremely small machines have been developed in recent years. Micro-
electromechanical systems (MEMS) refer to devices that have characteristic length of
less than 1 mm but more than 1 m, that combine electrical and mechanical compo-
nents, and that are fabricated using integrated circuit batch-processing techniques.
Electrostatic, magnetic, electromagnetic, pneumatic, and thermal actuators, motors,
valves, gears, cantilevers, diaphragms, and tweezers of less than 100-m size have
been fabricated. These have been used as sensors for pressure, temperature, mass
ow, velocity, and sound; as actuators for linear and angular motions; and as simple
components for complex systems such as microheat engines and microheat pumps.
Many of these microsensors and microactuators are potentially very useful for fu-
turistic distributed control systems that are particularly suited for turbulent ows, as
will be discussed in the next chapter. In the present chapter, we review the status of
our understanding of uid-ow phenomena particular to microdevices. In terms of
applications, this and the following chapter emphasize the use of MEMS as sensors
and actuators for ow diagnosis and control.
13.1 Introduction
How many times when you are working on something frustratingly tiny, like your wifes
wrist watch, have you said to yourself, If I could only train an ant to do this! What I
would like to suggest is the possibility of training an ant to train a mite to do this. What
are the possibilities of small but movable machines? They may or may not be useful, but
they surely would be fun to make.
269
270 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Figure 13.1: The scale of things in meters. Lower scale continues in the upper bar from left to right.
(From the talk Theres Plenty of Room at the Bottom, delivered by Richard
P. Feynman at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, Pasadena,
California, 29 December 1959.)
Toolmaking has always differentiated our species from all others on Earth. Aero-
dynamically correct wooden spears were carved by archaic Homo sapiens close to
400,000 years ago. Man builds things consistent with his size, typically in the range
of two orders of magnitude larger or smaller than himself, as indicated in Figure 13.1.
Though the extremes of length scale are outside the range of this gure, human be-
ings, at slightly more than 10
0
m, amazingly t right in the middle of the smallest
subatomic particle, which is approximately 10
26
m, and the extent of the observ-
able universe, which is 1.42 10
26
m (15 billion light years). An egocentric uni-
verse indeed! But humans have always striven to explore, build, and control the
extremes of length and time scales. In the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag of
Gullivers Travels, Jonathan Swift (1726) speculated on the remarkable possibilities
that diminution or magnication of physical dimensions provide. The Great Pyra-
mid of Khufu was originally 147 mhigh when completed around 2600 B.C., whereas
the Empire State Building constructed in 1931 is presentlyafter the addition of a
television antenna mast in 1950449 m high. At the other end of the spectrum of
man-made artifacts, a dime is slightly less than 2 cm in diameter. Watchmakers have
practiced the art of miniaturization since the thirteenth century. The invention of
the microscope in the seventeenth century opened the way for direct observation of
microbes and plant and animal cells. Smaller things were man-made in the latter half
of this century. The transistorinvented in 1947in todays integrated circuits has a
size
1
of 0.18 m (180 nanometers) in production and approaches 10 nm in research
laboratories using electron beams. But what about the miniaturization of mechani-
cal partsmachinesenvisioned by Feynman (1961) in his legendary speech quoted
above?
1
The smallest feature in a microchip is dened by its smallest linewidth, which in turn is related to the
wavelength of light employed in the basic lithographic process that is used to create the chip.
13.1 INTRODUCTION 271
Manufacturing processes that can create extremely small machines have been de-
veloped in recent years (Angell, Terry, and Barth 1983; Gabriel et al. 1988, 1992;
OConnor 1992; Gravesen, Branebjerg, and Jensen 1993; Bryzek, Peterson, and
McCulley 1994; Gabriel 1995; Hogan 1996; Ho and Tai 1996, 1998; Tien 1997;
Busch-Vishniac 1998; Amato 1998). Electrostatic, magnetic, electromagnetic, pneu-
matic and thermal actuators, motors, valves, gears, cantilevers, diaphragms, and
tweezers of less than 100-m size have been fabricated. These have been used as
sensors for pressure, temperature, mass ow, velocity, and sound; as actuators for
linear and angular motions; and as simple components for complex systems such as
microheat engines and microheat pumps (Lipkin 1993; Garcia and Sniegowski 1993,
1995; Sniegowski and Garcia 1996; Epstein and Senturia 1997; Epstein et al. 1997).
The technology is progressing at a rate that far exceeds that of our understanding of
the unconventional physics involved in the operation as well as the manufacturing of
those minute devices (Knight 1999b). The present chapter focuses on one aspect
of such physics: uid-ow phenomena associated with microscale devices. In terms
of applications, this and the following chapter will emphasize the use of MEMS as
sensors and actuators for ow diagnosis and control.
The term microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) refers to devices that have
characteristic length of less than 1 mm but more than 1 m, that combine
electrical and mechanical components, and that are fabricated using integrated circuit
batch-processing technologies. Current manufacturing techniques for MEMS include
surface silicon micromachining; bulk silicon micromachining; lithography, electrode-
position, and plastic molding (or, in its original German, lithographie galvanofor-
mung abformung, LIGA); and electrodischarge machining (EDM). As indicated in
Figure 13.1, MEMS are more than four orders of magnitude larger than the diameter
of the hydrogen atombut about four orders of magnitude smaller than the traditional
man-made artifacts. Nanodevices (some say NEMS) further push the envelope of
electromechanical miniaturization.
Despite Feynmans demurring regarding the usefulness of small machines, MEMS
are nding increased applications in a variety of industrial and medical elds with
a potential worldwide market in the billions of dollars. Accelerometers for automo-
bile airbags, keyless entry systems, dense arrays of micromirrors for high-denition
optical displays, scanning electron microscope tips to image single atoms, microheat
exchangers for cooling of electronic circuits, reactors for separating biological cells,
blood analyzers, and pressure sensors for catheter tips are but a fewin current use. Mi-
croducts are used in infrared detectors, diode lasers, miniature gas chromatographs,
and high-frequency uidic control systems. Micropumps are used for ink-jet print-
ing, environmental testing, and electronic cooling. Potential medical applications
for small pumps include controlled delivery and monitoring of minute amounts of
medication, manufacturing of nanoliters of chemicals, and development of an arti-
cial pancreas. Several new journals are dedicated to the science and technology of
MEMS, for example the IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems,
Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, and Microscale Thermophysical
Engineering.
Not all MEMS devices involve uid ows, but this chapter will focus on the ones
that do. Microducts, micropumps, microturbines, and microvalves are examples of
small devices involving the owof liquids and gases. Microelectromechanical systems
can also be related to uid ows in an indirect way. The availability of inexpensive,
272 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
batch-processing-produced microsensors and microactuators provides opportunities
for targeting small-scale coherent structures in macroscopic turbulent shear ows.
Flow control using MEMS promises a quantum leap in control system performance.
This chapter will cover both the direct and indirect aspects of microdevices and uid
ows. Section 2 addresses the question of modeling uid ows in microdevices, and
Section 3 gives a brief overview of typical applications of MEMS in the eld of uid
mechanics. The papers by Gad-el-Hak (1999) and L ofdahl and Gad-el-Hak (1999)
provide more detail on MEMS applications in turbulence and ow control. In this
book, Chapter 14 details reactive owcontrol strategies particularly suited for taming
turbulence.
13.2 Flow Physics
13.2.1 Fluid Mechanics Issues
The rapid progress in fabricating and utilizing microelectromechanical systems
during the last decade has not been matched by corresponding advances in our under-
standing of the unconventional physics involved in the operation and manufacture
of small devices. Providing such understanding is crucial to designing, optimizing,
fabricating, and operating improved MEMS devices.
Fluid ows in small devices differ from those in macroscopic machines. The oper-
ation of MEMS-based ducts, nozzles, valves, bearings, turbomachines, and so forth
cannot always be predicted fromconventional owmodels such as the NavierStokes
equations with a no-slip boundary condition at a uidsolid interface, as routinely
and successfully applied for larger ow devices. Many questions have been raised
when the results of experiments with microdevices could not be explained via tra-
ditional ow modeling. The pressure gradient in a long microduct was observed to
be nonconstant, and the measured owrate was higher than that predicted from the
conventional continuum ow model. Load capacities of microbearings were dimin-
ished, and electric currents needed to move micromotors were extraordinarily high.
The dynamic response of micromachined accelerometers operating at atmospheric
conditions was observed to be overdamped.
In the early stages of development of this exciting new eld, the objective was to
build MEMS devices as productively as possible. Microsensors were reading some-
thing, but not many researchers seemed to know exactly what. Microactuators were
moving, but conventional modeling could not precisely predict their motion. After
a decade of unprecedented progress in MEMS technology, perhaps the time is now
ripe to take stock, slow down a bit, and answer the many questions that have arisen.
The ultimate aim of this long-term exercise is to achieve rational-design capability
for useful microdevices and to be able to characterize the operations of microsensors
and microactuators denitively and with as little empiricism as possible.
In dealing with uid ow through microdevices, one is faced with the question
of which model to use, which boundary condition to apply, and how to proceed
to obtain solutions to the problem at hand. Obviously, surface effects dominate
in small devices. The surface-to-volume ratio for a machine with a characteristic
length of 1 m is 1 m
1
, whereas that for a MEMS device having a size of 1 m is
10
6
m
1
. The millionfold increase in surface area relative to the mass of the minute
device substantially affects the transport of mass, momentum, and energy through
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 273
the surface. The small length scale of microdevices may invalidate the continuum
approximation altogether. Slip ow, thermal creep, rarefaction, viscous dissipation,
compressibility, intermolecular forces, and other unconventional effects may have to
be taken into account, preferably using only rst principles such as conservation of
mass, Newtons second law, conservation of energy, and so forth.
In this section, we discuss continuum as well as molecular-based ow models
and the choices to be made. Computing typical Reynolds, Mach, and Knudsen num-
bers for the ow through a particular device is a good start to characterize the ow.
For gases, microuid mechanics has been studied by incorporating slip boundary
conditions, thermal creep, viscous dissipation, and compressibility effects into the
continuum equations of motion. Molecular-based models have also been attempted
for certain ranges of the operating parameters. Use is made of the well-developed
kinetic theory of gases, embodied in the Boltzmann equation, and direct simulation
methods such as Monte Carlo. Microuid mechanics of liquids is more complicated.
The molecules are much more closely packed at normal pressures and temperatures,
and the attractive or cohesive potential between the liquid molecules as well as be-
tween the liquid and solid ones plays a dominant role if the characteristic length of
the ow is sufciently small. In cases in which the traditional continuum model fails
to provide accurate predictions or postdictions, expensive molecular dynamics sim-
ulations seem to be the only rst-principle approach available to characterize liquid
ows in microdevices rationally. Such simulations are not yet feasible for realistic
ow extent or number of molecules. As a consequence, the microuid mechanics of
liquids is much less developed than that for gases.
13.2.2 Fluid Modeling
There are basically two ways of modeling a oweld: either as the uid really is,
a collection of molecules, or as a continuum in which the matter is assumed contin-
uous and indenitely divisible. The former modeling is subdivided into deterministic
methods and probabilistic ones, whereas in the latter approach the velocity, density,
pressure, and so forth are dened at every point in space and time and conservation
of mass, energy, and momentum leads to a set of nonlinear partial differential equa-
tions (Euler, NavierStokes, Burnett, etc.). Fluid-modeling classication is depicted
schematically in Figure 13.2.
The continuum model, embodied in the NavierStokes equations, is applicable
to numerous ow situations. The model ignores the molecular nature of gases and
liquids and regards the uid as a continuous medium describable in terms of the
spatial and temporal variations of density, velocity, pressure, temperature, and other
macroscopic owquantities. For dilute gas ows near equilibrium, the NavierStokes
equations are derivable from the molecularly based Boltzmann equation but can also
be derived independently for both liquids and gases. In the case of direct derivation,
some empiricism is necessary to close the resulting indeterminate set of equations.
The continuum model is easier to handle mathematically (and is also more familiar
to most uid dynamists) than the alternative molecular models. Continuum models
should therefore be used as long as they are applicable. Thus, careful considerations
of the validity of the NavierStokes equations and the like are in order.
Basically, the continuummodel leads to fairly accurate predictions as long as local
properties such as density and velocity can be dened as averages over elements large
compared with the microscopic structure of the uid but small enough in compar-
ison with the scale of the macroscopic phenomena to permit the use of differential
274 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Figure 13.2: Molecular and continuum ow models.
calculus to describe them. Additionally, the ow must not be too far from thermo-
dynamic equilibrium. The former condition is almost always satised, but it is the
latter that usually restricts the validity of the continuum equations. As will be seen
in Section 13.2.3, the continuum ow equations do not form a determinate set. The
shear stress and heat ux must be expressed in terms of lower-order macroscopic
quantities such as velocity and temperature, and the simplest (i.e., linear) relations
are valid only when the ow is near thermodynamic equilibrium. Worse yet, the
traditional no-slip boundary condition at a solid-uid interface breaks down even
before the linear stressstrain relation becomes invalid.
To be more specic, we temporarily restrict the discussion to gases for which
the concept of mean free path is well dened. Liquids are more problematic, and we
defer their discussion to Section 13.2.7. For gases, the mean free path L is the average
distance traveled by molecules between collisions. For an ideal gas modeled as rigid
spheres, the mean free path is related to temperature T and pressure p as follows:
L =
1
2n
2
=
kT
2p
2
(13.1)
where n is the number density (number of molecules per unit volume), is the
molecular diameter, and k is the Boltzmann constant.
The continuum model is valid when L is much smaller than a characteristic ow
dimension L. As this condition is violated, the owis no longer near equilibrium, and
the linear relation between stress and rate of strain and the no-slip velocity condition
are no longer valid. Similarly, the linear relation between heat ux and temperature
gradient and the no-jump temperature condition at a solid-uid interface are no
longer accurate when L is not much smaller than L.
The length scale L can be some overall dimension of the ow, but a more precise
choice is the scale of the gradient of a macroscopic quantity, as, for example, the
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 275
density , as dened by
L =
(13.2)
The ratio between the mean free path and the characteristic length is known as the
Knudsen number
Kn =
L
L
(13.3)
and generally the traditional continuum approach is valid, albeit with modied
boundary conditions, as long as Kn < 0.1.
There are two more important dimensionless parameters in uid mechanics, and
the Knudsen number can be expressed in terms of these two. The Reynolds number
is the ratio of inertial forces to viscous ones
Re =
v
o
L
(13.4)
where v
o
is a characteristic velocity, and is the kinematic viscosity of the uid. The
Mach number is the ratio of ow velocity to the speed of sound
Ma =
v
o
a
o
(13.5)
The Mach number is a dynamic measure of uid compressibility and may be consid-
ered as the ratio of inertial forces to elastic ones. From the kinetic theory of gases,
the mean free path is related to the viscosity as follows:
=
=
1
2
Lv
m
(13.6)
where is the dynamic viscosity, and v
m
is the mean molecular speed, which is
somewhat higher than the sound speed a
o
,
v
m
=
a
o
(13.7)
where is the specic heat ratio (i.e., the isentropic exponent). Combining Eqs.
(13.3)(13.7), we reach the required relation
Kn =
_
2
Ma
Re
(13.8)
In boundary layers, the relevant length scale is the shear-layer thickness , and
for laminar ows
L
1
Re
(13.9)
Kn
Ma
Re
Ma
Re
(13.10)
276 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
where Re
t
+
x
k
(u
k
) = 0 (13.11)
2
More likely the ow will be somewhere in between isothermal and adiabatic, Fanno ow. In that case
both density and temperature decrease downstream, the former not as fast as in the isothermal case.
None of that changes the qualitative arguments made in the example.
278 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
_
u
i
t
+u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
ki
x
k
+g
i
(13.12)
_
e
t
+u
k
e
x
k
_
=
q
k
x
k
+
ki
u
i
x
k
(13.13)
where is the uid density, u
k
is an instantaneous velocity component (u, v, w),
ki
is the second-order stress tensor (surface force per unit area), g
i
is the body force
per unit mass, e is the internal energy, and q
k
is the sum of heat ux vectors due to
conduction and radiation. The independent variables are time t and the three spatial
coordinates x
1
, x
2
, and x
3
or (x, y, z).
Equations (13.11), (13.12), and (13.13) constitute 5 differential equations for
the 17 unknowns , u
i
,
ki
, e, and q
k
. Absent any body couples, the stress tensor
is symmetric, having only 6 independent components, which reduces the number of
unknowns to 14. Obviously, the continuumowequations do not forma determinate
set. To close the conservation equations, the relation between the stress tensor and
deformation rate, the relation between the heat ux vector, and the temperature eld
and appropriate equations of state relating the different thermodynamic properties
are needed. The stressrate of strain relation and the heat uxtemperature gradient
relation are approximately linear if the ow is not too far from thermodynamic
equilibrium. This is a phenomenological result but can be rigorously derived fromthe
Boltzmann equation for a dilute gas if it is assumed that the ow is near equilibrium
(see Section 13.2.6). For a Newtonian, isotropic, Fourier, ideal gas, for example,
these relations read
ki
= p
ki
+
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
_
+
_
u
j
x
j
_
ki
(13.14)
q
i
=
T
x
i
+Heat ux due to radiation (13.15)
de = c
v
dT and p = RT (13.16)
where p is the thermodynamic pressure, and are the rst and second coefcients
of viscosity, respectively,
ki
is the unit second-order tensor (Kronecker delta), is
the thermal conductivity, T is the temperature eld, c
v
is the specic heat at constant
volume, and Ris the gas constant, which is given by the Boltzmann constant divided
by the mass of an individual molecule (k = mR). The Stokes hypothesis relates the
rst and second coefcients of viscosity, thus +
2
3
= 0, although the validity of
this assumption for other than dilute, monatomic gases has occasionally been ques-
tioned (Gad-el-Hak 1995). With the preceding constitutive relations and radiative
heat transfer neglected, Eqs. (13.11), (13.12), and (13.13) respectively read
t
+
x
k
(u
k
) = 0 (13.17)
_
u
i
t
+u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
p
x
i
+g
i
+
x
k
_
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
_
+
ki
u
j
x
j
_
(13.18)
c
v
_
T
t
+u
k
T
x
k
_
=
x
k
_
T
x
k
_
p
u
k
x
k
+ (13.19)
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 279
The three components of the vector equation (13.18) are the NavierStokes equations
expressing the conservation of momentum for a Newtonian uid. In the thermal
energy equation (13.19), is the always positive dissipation function expressing
the irreversible conversion of mechanical energy to internal energy as a result of the
deformation of a uid element. The second termon the right-hand side of Eq. (13.19)
is the reversible work done (per unit time) by the pressure as the volume of a uid
material element changes. For a Newtonian, isotropic uid, the viscous dissipation
rate is given by
=
1
2
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
_
2
+
_
u
j
x
j
_
2
(13.20)
There are nowsix unknowns, , u
i
, p, and T, and the ve coupled equations (13.17),
(13.18), and (13.19) plus the equation of state relating pressure, density, and temper-
ature. These six equations together with a sufcient number of initial and boundary
conditions constitute a well-posed, albeit formidable, problem. The system of equa-
tions (13.17)(13.19) is an excellent model for the laminar or turbulent ow of most
uids such as air and water under many circumstances, including high-speed gas ows
for which the shock waves are thick relative to the mean free path of the molecules.
Considerable simplication is achieved if the ow is assumed incompressible,
which is usually a reasonable assumption provided that the characteristic ow speed
is less than 0.3 of the speed of sound. The incompressibility assumption is readily
satised for almost all liquid ows and many gas ows. In such cases, the density is
assumed either a constant or a given function of temperature (or species concentra-
tion). The governing equations for such ows are
u
k
x
k
= 0 (13.21)
_
u
i
t
+u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
p
x
i
+
x
k
_
_
u
i
x
k
+
u
k
x
i
__
+g
i
(13.22)
c
p
_
T
t
+u
k
T
x
k
_
=
x
k
_
T
x
k
_
+
incomp
(13.23)
where
incomp
is the incompressible limit of Eq. (13.20). These are now ve equations
for the ve dependent variables u
i
, p, and T. As noted in Section 2.2, the left-hand
side of Eq. (13.23) has the specic heat at constant pressure c
p
and not c
v
.
For both the compressible and the incompressible equations of motion, the trans-
port terms are neglected away fromsolid walls in the limit of innite Reynolds number
(Kn 0). The uid is then approximated as inviscid and nonconducting, and the
corresponding equations read (for the compressible case)
t
+
x
k
(u
k
) = 0 (13.24)
_
u
i
t
+u
k
u
i
x
k
_
=
p
x
i
+g
i
(13.25)
c
v
_
T
t
+u
k
T
x
k
_
= p
u
k
x
k
(13.26)
280 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
The Euler equation (13.25) can be integrated along a streamline, and the resulting
Bernoullis equation provides a direct relation between the velocity and pressure.
13.2.4 Compressibility
The issue of whether to consider the continuumowcompressible or incompress-
ible seems to be rather straightforward but is in fact full of potential pitfalls. This issue
was covered in Chapter 2, but portions of that material are repeated here because
of their importance to MEMS ows and to provide continuity between the different
subsections in this section. If the local Mach number is less than 0.3, then the ow of
a compressible uid like air canaccording to the conventional wisdombe treated
as incompressible. But the well-known Ma < 0.3 criterion is only a necessary but
not a sufcient one to allow treatment of the ow as approximately incompressible.
In other words, there are situations in which the Mach number can be exceedingly
small while the owis compressible. As is well documented in heat transfer textbooks,
strong wall heating or cooling may cause the density to change sufciently and the
incompressible approximation to break down, even at low speeds. Less known is
the situation encountered in some microdevices in which the pressure may strongly
change because of viscous effects even though the speeds may not be high enough
for the Mach number to go above the traditional threshold of 0.3. Corresponding
to the pressure changes are strong density changes that must be taken into account
when writing the continuum equations of motion. In this section, we systematically
explain all situations relevant to MEMS for which compressibility effects must be
considered.
Let us rewrite the full continuity equation (13.11) as follows:
D
Dt
+
u
k
x
k
= 0 (13.27)
where
D
Dt
is the substantial derivative (
t
+u
k
x
k
) expressing changes following a uid
element. The proper criterion for the incompressible approximation to hold is that
(
1
D
Dt
) is vanishingly small. In other words, if density changes following a uid particle
are small, the ow is approximately incompressible. Density may change arbitrarily
from one particle to another without violating the incompressible ow assumption.
This is the case, for example, in the stratied atmosphere and ocean, where the
variable-densitytemperaturesalinity ow is often treated as incompressible.
From the state principle of thermodynamics, we can express the density changes
of a simple system in terms of changes in pressure and temperature by
= ( p, T). (13.28)
From the chain rule of calculus,
1
D
Dt
=
Dp
Dt
DT
Dt
(13.29)
where and are, respectively, the isothermal compressibility coefcient and the
bulk expansion coefcient, both previously dened in Section 2.3. The ow must be
treated as compressible if pressure and temperature changes are sufciently strong.
Equation (13.29) must of course be properly nondimensionalized before it is decided
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 281
whether a term is large or small. Here, we follow closely the procedure detailed in
Panton (1996).
Consider rst the case of adiabatic walls. Density is normalized with a reference
value
o
, velocities with a reference speed v
o
, spatial coordinates and time with,
respectively, L and L/v
o
, and the isothermal compressibility coefcient and bulk
expansion coefcient with reference values
o
and
o
, respectively. The pressure
is nondimensionalized with the inertial pressure scale
o
v
2
o
. This scale is twice the
dynamic pressure, that is, the pressure change as an inviscid uid moving at the
reference speed is brought to rest.
Temperature changes for the case of adiabatic walls result from the irreversible
conversion of mechanical energy into internal energy via viscous dissipation. Tem-
perature is therefore nondimensionalized as follows:
T
=
T T
o
_
o
v
2
o
o
_
=
T T
o
Pr
_
v
2
o
c
po
_
(13.30)
where T
o
is a reference temperature,
o
,
o
, and c
p
o
are, respectively, reference vis-
cosity, thermal conductivity, and specic heat at constant pressure, and Pr is the
reference Prandtl number, (
o
c
p
o
)/
o
.
In the present formulation, the scaling used for pressure is based on the Bernoullis
equation and therefore neglects viscous effects. This particular scaling guarantees
that the pressure term in the momentum equation will be of the same order as the
inertia term. The temperature scaling assumes that the conduction, convection, and
dissipation terms in the energy equation have the same order of magnitude. The
resulting dimensionless form of Eq. (13.29) reads
1
Dt
=
o
Ma
2
_
Dp
Dt
PrB
A
DT
Dt
_
(13.31)
where the superscript
indicates a nondimensional quantity, Ma is the reference
Mach number, and Aand B are dimensionless constants dened by A
o
o
c
p
o
T
o
,
and B
o
T
o
. If the scaling is properly chosen, the terms having the
superscript
in the right-hand side should be of order one, and the relative importance of such
terms in the equations of motion is determined by the magnitude of the dimension-
less parameter(s) appearing to their left (e.g., Ma, Pr, etc.). Therefore, as Ma
2
0,
temperature changes due to viscous dissipation are neglected (unless Pr is very large
as, for example, in the case of highly viscous polymers and oils). Within the same
order of approximation, all thermodynamic properties of the uid are assumed
constant.
Pressure changes are also neglected in the limit of zero Mach number. Hence,
for Ma <0.3 (i.e., Ma
2
<0.09), density changes following a uid particle can be
neglected, and the ow can then be approximated as incompressible. However, there
is a caveat in this argument. Pressure changes due to inertia can indeed be neglected
at small Mach numbers, and this is consistent with the way we nondimensionalized
the pressure term above. If, on the other hand, pressure changes are mostly due to
viscous effects, as is the case for example in a long duct or a gas bearing, pressure
changes may be signicant even at low speeds (low Ma). In that case the term
Dp
Dt
in
Eq. (13.31) is no longer of order one and may be large regardless of the value of Ma.
282 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Density then may change signicantly, and the ow must be treated as compressible.
Had pressure been nondimensionalized using the viscous scale (
o
v
o
L
) instead of the
inertial one (
o
v
2
o
), the revised equation (13.31) would have Re
1
appearing explicitly
in the rst term in the right-hand side, thus accentuating the importance of this term
when viscous forces dominate.
A similar result can be gleaned when the Mach number is interpreted as follows:
Ma
2
=
v
2
o
a
2
o
= v
2
o
s
=
o
v
2
o
p
=
o
(13.32)
where s is the entropy. Again, the preceding equation assumes that pressure changes
are inviscid, and therefore small Mach number means negligible pressure and density
changes. In a ow dominated by viscous effectssuch as that inside a microduct
density changes may be signicant even in the limit of zero Mach number.
Identical arguments can be made in the case of isothermal walls. Here strong
temperature changes may be the result of wall heating or cooling, even if viscous
dissipation is negligible. The proper temperature scale in this case is given in terms
of the wall temperature T
w
and the reference temperature T
o
as follows
T =
T T
o
T
w
T
o
(13.33)
where
T is the new dimensionless temperature. The nondimensional form of
Eq. (13.29) now reads
1
Dt
=
o
Ma
2
Dp
Dt
B
_
T
w
T
o
T
o
_
D
T
Dt
(13.34)
Here we notice that the temperature term is different from that in Eq. (13.31), for
Ma is no longer appearing in this term, and strong temperature changes, that is, large
(T
w
T
o
)/T
o
, may cause strong density changes regardless of the value of the Mach
number. Additionally, the thermodynamic properties of the uid are not constant
but depend on temperature, and as a result, the continuity, momentum, and energy
equations are all coupled. The pressure term in Eq. (13.34), on the other hand, is
exactly as it was in the adiabatic case, and the same arguments made before apply:
the ow should be considered compressible if Ma > 0.3 or if pressure changes due
to viscous forces are sufciently large.
Experiments in gaseous microducts conrm the preceding arguments. For both
low- and high-Mach-number ows, pressure gradients in long microchannels are
nonconstant, consistent with the compressible owequations. Such experiments were
conducted by, among others, Prudhomme et al. (1986); Pfahler et al. (1991); van den
Berg et al. (1993); Liu et al. (1993, 1995); Pong et al. (1994); Harley et al. (1995);
Piekos and Breuer (1996); Arkilic (1997); and Arkilic, Schmidt, and Breuer (1995,
1997a,b). Sample results will be presented in the following subsection.
13.2.5 Boundary Conditions
The equations of motion described in Section 13.2.3 require a certain number
of initial and boundary conditions for proper mathematical formulation of ow
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 283
problems. In this subsection, we describe the boundary conditions at a uidsolid
interface. Boundary conditions in the inviscid ow theory pertain only to the veloc-
ity component normal to a solid surface. The highest spatial derivative of velocity in
the inviscid equations of motion is rst-order, and only one velocity boundary con-
dition at the surface is admissible. The normal velocity component at a uidsolid
interface is specied, and no statement can be made regarding the tangential velocity
component. The normal velocity condition simply states that a uid-particle path
cannot go through an impermeable wall. Real uids are of course viscous, and the
corresponding momentum equation has second-order derivatives of velocity, thus
requiring an additional boundary condition on the velocity component tangential to
a solid surface.
Traditionally, the no-slip condition at a uidsolid interface is enforced in the
momentum equation, and an analogous no-temperature-jump condition is applied
in the energy equation. The notion underlying the no-slip and no-jump condition
is that, within the uid, there cannot be any nite discontinuities of velocity or
temperature. Those would involve innite velocity or temperature gradients and thus
produce innite viscous stress or heat ux that would destroy the discontinuity in
innitesimal time. The interaction between a uid particle and a wall is similar to that
between neighboring uid particles, and therefore no discontinuities are allowed at
the uidsolid interface either. In other words, the uid velocity must be zero relative
to the surface, and the uid temperature must equal to that of the surface. But strictly
speaking these two boundary conditions are valid only if the uid owadjacent to the
surface is in thermodynamic equilibrium. This requires an innitely high frequency
of collisions between the uid and the solid surface. In practice, the no-slip and
no-jump condition leads to fairly accurate predictions as long as Kn < 0.001 (for
gases). Beyond that, the collision frequency is simply not high enough to ensure
equilibrium, and a certain degree of tangential-velocity slip and temperature jump
must be allowed. This is a case frequently encountered in MEMS ows, and we
develop the appropriate relations in this subsection.
For both liquids and gases, the linear Navier boundary condition empirically
relates the tangential velocity slip at the wall u|
w
to the local shear
u|
w
= u
uid
u
wall
= L
s
u
y
w
(13.35)
where L
s
is the constant slip length, and
u
y
|
w
is the strain rate computed at the wall.
In most practical situations, the slip length is so small that the no-slip condition holds.
In MEMS applications, however, that may not be the case. Once again we defer the
discussion of liquids to Section 13.2.7 and focus for now on gases.
On the assumption that isothermal conditions prevail, the preceding slip relation
has been rigorously derived by Maxwell (1879) from considerations of the kinetic
theory of dilute, monatomic gases. Gas molecules, modeled as rigid spheres, contin-
uously strike and reect from a solid surface just as they continuously collide with
each other. For an idealized perfectly smooth wall,
3
the incident angle exactly equals
the reected angle, and the molecules conserve their tangential momentum and thus
exert no shear on the wall. This is termed specular reection and results in perfect
slip at the wall. For an extremely rough wall, on the other hand, the molecules
3
At the molecular scale.
284 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
reect at some random angle uncorrelated with their entry angle. This perfectly dif-
fuse reection results in zero tangential momentum for the reected uid molecules
to be balanced by a nite slip velocity in order to account for the shear stress trans-
mitted to the wall. A force balance near the wall leads to the following expression
for the slip velocity:
u
gas
u
wall
= L
u
y
w
(13.36)
where L is the mean free path. The right-hand side can be considered as the rst
term in an innite Taylor series, which is sufcient if the mean free path is relatively
small enough. Equation (13.36) states that signicant slip occurs only if the mean
velocity of the molecules varies appreciably over a distance of one mean free path.
This is the case, for example, in vacuum applications, ow in microdevices, or both.
The number of collisions between the uid molecules and the solid in those cases
is not large enough for even an approximate ow equilibrium to be established.
Furthermore, additional (nonlinear) terms in the Taylor series would be needed as L
increases and the ow is further removed from the equilibrium state.
For real walls some molecules reect diffusively and some reect specularly. In
other words, a portion of the momentum of the incident molecules is lost to the
wall, and a (typically smaller) portion is retained by the reected molecules. The
tangential-momentum-accommodation coefcient
v
is dened as the fraction of
molecules reected diffusively. This coefcient depends on the uid, the solid, and
the surface nish and has been determined experimentally to be between 0.20.8
(Thomas and Lord 1974; Seidl and Steinheil 1974; Porodnov et al. 1974; Arkilic
et al. 1997b; Arkilic 1997), the lower limit being for exceptionally smooth surfaces,
whereas the upper limit is typical of most practical surfaces. The nal expression
derived by Maxwell for an isothermal wall reads
u
gas
u
wall
=
2
v
v
L
u
y
w
(13.37)
For
v
= 0, the slip velocity is unbounded, whereas for
v
= 1, Eq. (13.37) reverts
to Eq. (13.36).
Similar arguments were made for the temperature-jump boundary condition by
von Smoluchowski (1898). For an ideal gas ow in the presence of wall-normal
and tangential temperature gradients, the complete slip-ow and temperature-jump
boundary conditions read
u
gas
u
wall
=
2
v
v
1
_
2RT
gas
w
+
3
4
Pr( 1)
RT
gas
(q
x
)
w
=
2
v
v
L
_
u
y
_
w
+
3
4
T
gas
_
T
x
_
w
(13.38)
T
gas
T
wall
=
2
T
T
_
2( 1)
( +1)
_
1
R
_
2RT
gas
(q
y
)
w
=
2
T
T
_
2
( +1)
_
L
Pr
_
T
y
_
w
(13.39)
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 285
where x and y are the streamwise and normal coordinates, and are respectively
the uid density and viscosity, R is the gas constant, T
gas
is the temperature of the
gas adjacent to the wall, T
wall
is the wall temperature,
w
is the shear stress at the
wall, Pr is the Prandtl number, is the specic heat ratio, and (q
x
)
w
and (q
y
)
w
are,
respectively, the tangential and normal heat ux at the wall.
The tangential-momentum-accommodation coefcient
v
and the thermal-
accommodation coefcient
T
are given by, respectively,
v
=
i
w
(13.40)
T
=
dE
i
dE
r
dE
i
dE
w
(13.41)
where the subscripts i , r, and w stand for, respectively, incident, reected, and
solid wall conditions; is a tangential momentum ux; and dE is an energy
ux.
The second term in the right-hand side of Eq. (13.38) is the thermal creep, which
generates slip velocity in the uid opposite to the direction of the tangential heat ux
(i.e., ow in the direction of increasing temperature). At sufciently high Knudsen
numbers, streamwise temperature gradient in a conduit leads to a measurable pres-
sure gradient along the tube. This may be the case in vacuumapplications and MEMS
devices. Thermal creep is the basis for the so-called Knudsen pumpa device with
no moving partsin which rareed gas is hauled from one cold chamber to a hot
one.
4
Clearly, such a pump performs best at high Knudsen numbers and is typically
designed to operate in the free-molecule ow regime.
In dimensionless form, Eqs. (13.38) and (13.39), respectively, read
u
gas
u
wall
=
2
v
v
Kn
_
u
_
w
+
3
2
( 1)
Kn
2
Re
Ec
_
T
_
w
(13.42)
T
gas
T
wall
=
2
T
T
_
2
( +1)
_
Kn
Pr
_
T
_
w
(13.43)
where the superscript
indicates dimensionless quantity, Kn is the Knudsen number,
Re is the Reynolds number, and Ec is the Eckert number dened by
Ec =
v
2
o
c
p
T
= ( 1)
T
o
T
Ma
2
(13.44)
where v
o
is a reference velocity, T = (T
gas
T
o
), and T
o
is a reference tempera-
ture. Note that very low values of
v
and
T
lead to substantial velocity slip and
temperature jump even for ows with small Knudsen number.
The rst term in the right-hand side of Eq. (13.42) is rst-order in Knudsen
number, whereas the thermal creep term is second-order, meaning that the creep
phenomenon is potentially signicant at large values of the Knudsen number.
Equation (13.43) is rst-order in Kn. Using Eqs. (13.8) and (13.44), the thermal
4
The terminology Knudsen pump has been used by, for example, Vargo and Muntz (1996), but according
to Loeb (1961), the original experiments demonstrating such pumps were carried out by Osborne
Reynolds.
286 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
creep term in Eq. (13.42) can be rewritten in terms of T and Reynolds number.
Thus,
u
gas
u
wall
=
2
v
v
Kn
_
u
_
w
+
3
4
T
T
o
1
Re
_
T
_
w
(13.45)
It is clear that large temperature changes along the surface or low Reynolds numbers
lead to signicant thermal creep.
The continuum NavierStokes equations with no-slip or no-temperature jump
boundary conditions are valid as long as the Knudsen number does not exceed 0.001.
First-order slip or temperature-jump boundary conditions should be applied to the
NavierStokes equations in the range of 0.001 <Kn <0.1. The transition regime
spans the range of 0.1 <Kn <10, and second-order or higher slip or temperature-
jump boundary conditions are applicable there. Note, however, that the Navier
Stokes equations are rst-order accurate in Kn, as will be shown in Section 13.2.6,
and are themselves not valid in the transition regime. Either higher-order contin-
uum equations (e.g., Burnett equations) should be used there, or molecular modeling
should be invoked, abandoning the continuum approach altogether.
For isothermal walls, Beskok (1994) derived a higher-order slip-velocity condition
as follows:
u
gas
u
wall
=
2
v
v
_
L
_
u
y
_
w
+
L
2
2!
_
2
u
y
2
_
w
+
L
3
3!
_
3
u
y
3
_
w
+
_
(13.46)
Attempts to implement the slip condition of Eq. (13.46) in numerical simulations are
rather difcult. Second-order and higher derivatives of velocity cannot be computed
accurately near the wall. On the basis of asymptotic analysis, Beskok (1996) and
Beskok and Karniadakis (1994, 1999) proposed the following alternative higher-
order boundary condition for the tangential velocity, including the thermal creep
term:
u
gas
u
wall
=
2
v
v
Kn
1 bKn
_
u
_
w
+
3
2
( 1)
Kn
2
Re
Ec
_
T
_
w
(13.47)
where b is a high-order slip coefcient determined from the presumably known no-
slip solution, thus avoiding the computational difculties mentioned above. If this
high-order slip coefcient is chosen as b = u
w
/2u
w
, where the prime denotes deriva-
tive with respect to y and the velocity is computed from the no-slip NavierStokes
equations, Eq. (13.47) becomes second-order accurate in Knudsen number. Beskoks
procedure can be extended to third- and higher-orders for both the slip-velocity and
thermal creep terms.
Similar arguments can be applied to the temperature-jump boundary condition,
and the resulting Taylor series reads in dimensionless form (Beskok 1996)
T
gas
T
wall
=
2
T
T
_
2
( +1)
_
1
Pr
_
Kn
_
T
_
w
+
Kn
2
2!
_
2
T
y
2
_
w
+
_
(13.48)
Again, the difculties associated with computing second- and higher-order derivatives
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 287
Figure 13.4: Variation of mass owrate as a function of ( p
2
i
p
2
o
).
Original data acquired by S.A. Tison and plotted by Beskok et al.
(1996).
of temperature are alleviated by using an identical procedure to that utilized for the
tangential velocity boundary condition.
Several experiments in low-pressure macroducts or in microducts conrm the
necessity of applying the slip boundary condition at sufciently large Knudsen num-
bers. Among them are those conducted by Knudsen (1909), Pfahler at al. (1991),
Tison (1993), Liu et al. (1993, 1995), Pong et al. (1994), Arkilic et al. (1995), Harley
et al. (1995), and Shih et al. (1995, 1996). The experiments are complemented by the
numerical simulations carried out by Beskok (1994, 1996); Beskok and Karniadakis
(1994, 1999); and Beskok, Karniadakis, and Trimmer (1996). Here we present se-
lected examples of the experimental and numerical results.
Tison (1993) conducted pipe owexperiments at very lowpressures. His pipe had
a diameter of 2 mm and a length-to-diameter ratio of 200. Both inlet and outlet pres-
sures were varied to yield Knudsen numbers in the range of Kn =0200. Figure 13.4
shows the variation of mass ow rate as a function of ( p
2
i
p
2
o
), where p
i
is the inlet
pressure and p
o
is the outlet pressure.
5
The pressure drop in this rareed pipe ow
is nonlinear, which is characteristic of low-Reynolds-number, compressible ows.
Three distinct ow regimes are identied: (1) the slip-ow regime, 0<Kn <0.6;
(2) transition regime, 0.6<Kn <17, where the mass ow rate is almost constant
as the pressure changes; and (3) free-molecule ow, Kn >17. Note that the de-
marcation between these three regimes is slightly different from that mentioned in
Section 13.2.2. As stated, the different Knudsen number regimes are determined
empirically and are therefore only approximate for a particular ow geometry.
Shih et al. (1995) conducted their experiments in a microchannel using helium
as a uid. The inlet pressure varied, but the duct exit was atmospheric. Microsen-
sors where fabricated in situ along their MEMS channel to measure the pressure.
5
The original data in this gure were acquired by S.A. Tison and plotted by Beskok et al. (1996).
288 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Figure 13.5: Mass ow rate versus inlet pressure in a microchannel [after Shih
et al. 1995].
Figure 13.5 shows their measured mass ow rate versus the inlet pressure. The data
are compared to the no-slip solution and the slip solution using three different val-
ues of the tangential-momentum-accommodation coefcient, 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0. The
agreement is reasonable with the case
v
= 1.0, indicating perhaps that the channel
used by Shih et al. was quite rough on the molecular scale. In a second experiment
(Shih et al. 1996), nitrous oxide was used as the uid. The square of the pressure distri-
bution along the channel is plotted in Figure 13.6 for ve different inlet pressures. The
experimental data (symbols) compare well with the theoretical predictions (solid
lines). Again, the nonlinear pressure drop shown indicates that the gas ow is com-
pressible.
Arkilic (1997) provided an elegant analysis of the compressible, rareed ow
in a microchannel. The results of his theory are compared with the experiments
of Pong et al. (1994) in Figure 13.7. The dotted line is the incompressible ow
Figure 13.6: Pressure distribution of nitrous oxide in a microduct. Solid
lines are theoretical predictions [after Shih et al. 1996].
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 289
Figure 13.7: Pressure distribution in a long microchannel. The symbols are
experimental data while the solid lines are different theoretical predictions [after
Arkilic 1997].
solution, where the pressure is predicted to drop linearly with streamwise distance.
The dashed line is the compressible ow solution that neglects rarefaction effects
(assumes Kn = 0). Finally, the solid line is the theoretical result that takes into account
both compressibility and rarefaction via slip-ow boundary condition computed at
the exit Knudsen number of Kn = 0.06. That theory compares most favorably with
the experimental data. In the compressible ow through the constant-area duct,
density decreases, and thus velocity increases in the streamwise direction. As a result,
the pressure distribution is nonlinear with negative curvature. A moderate Knudsen
number (i.e., moderate slip) actually diminishes, albeit rather weakly, this curvature.
Thus, compressibility and rarefaction effects lead to opposing trends, as pointed out
by Beskok et al. (1996).
13.2.6 Molecular-Based Models
In the continuum models discussed in Section 13.2.3, the macroscopic uid prop-
erties are the dependent variables, whereas the independent variables are the three
spatial coordinates and time. The molecular models recognize the uid as a myriad of
discrete particles: molecules, atoms, ions, and electrons. The goal here is to determine
the position, velocity, and state of all particles at all times. The molecular approach
is either deterministic or probabilistic (refer to Figure 13.2). Provided that there is a
sufcient number of microscopic particles within the smallest signicant volume of
a ow, the macroscopic properties at any location in the ow can then be computed
from the discrete-particle information by a suitable averaging or weighted averaging
process. This subsection discusses molecular-based models and their relation to the
continuum models previously considered.
The most fundamental of the molecular models is a deterministic one. The motion
of the molecules is governed by the laws of classical mechanics, although, at the
expense of greatly complicating the problem, the laws of quantummechanics can also
290 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
be considered in special circumstances. The modern molecular dynamics computer
simulations (MD) have been pioneered by Alder and Wainwright (1957, 1958, 1970)
and reviewed by Ciccotti and Hoover (1986); Allen and Tildesley (1987); Haile
(1993); and Koplik and Banavar (1995). The simulation begins with a set of N
molecules in a region of space, each assigned a random velocity corresponding to
a Boltzmann distribution at the temperature of interest. The interaction between
the particles is prescribed typically in the form of a two-body potential energy, and
the time evolution of the molecular positions is determined by integrating Newtons
equations of motion. Because MD is based on the most basic set of equations, it is
valid in principle for any ow extent and any range of parameters. The method is
straightforward in principle, but there are two hurdles: (1) the choice of a proper and
convenient potential for particular uid and solid combinations and (2) the colossal
computer resources required to simulate a reasonable oweld extent.
For purists, the former difculty is a sticky one. There is no totally rational
methodology by which a convenient potential can be chosen. Part of the art of MD is
to pick an appropriate potential and validate the simulation results with experiments
or other analytical or computational results. A commonly used potential between
two molecules is the generalized LennardJones 612 potential to be used in Sec-
tion 13.2.7 and further discussed in Section 13.2.8.
The second difculty, and by far the most serious limitation of molecular dynamics
simulations, is the number of molecules Nthat can realistically be modeled on a digital
computer. Because the computation of an element of trajectory for any particular
molecule requires consideration of all other molecules as potential collision partners,
the amount of computation required by the MDmethod is proportional to N
2
. Some
saving in computer time can be achieved by cutting off the weak tail of the potential
(see Figure 13.12) at, say, r
c
= 2.5 and shifting the potential by a linear term in r so
that the force goes smoothly to zero at the cutoff. As a result, only nearby molecules
are treated as potential collision partners, and the computation time for Nmolecules
no longer scales with N
2
.
The state of the art of molecular dynamics simulations in the 1990s is such that
with a few hours of CPU time, general-purpose supercomputers can handle around
10,000 molecules. At enormous expense, the fastest parallel machine available can
simulate around 1 million particles. Because of the extreme diminution of molecu-
lar scales, these capabilities translate into regions of liquid ow of about 0.01 m
(100
A) in linear size over time intervals of around 0.001 s, which is just enough
for continuum behavior to set in for simple molecules. To simulate 1 s of real time
for complex molecular interactions (e.g., including vibration modes, reorientation
of polymer molecules, collision of colloidal particles, etc.) requires unrealistic CPU
time measured in thousands of years.
The MD simulations are highly inefcient for dilute gases, for their molecular
interactions are infrequent. These simulations are more suited for dense gases and
liquids. Clearly, molecular dynamics simulations are reserved for situations in which
the continuumapproach or the statistical methods are inadequate to compute impor-
tant ow quantities from rst principles. Slip boundary conditions for liquid ows
in extremely small devices is such a case, as will be discussed in Section 13.2.7.
An alternative to the deterministic molecular dynamics is the statistical approach
in which the goal is to compute the probability of nding a molecule at a particular
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 291
position and state. If the appropriate conservation equation can be solved for the
probability distribution, important statistical properties such as the mean number,
momentum, or energy of the molecules within an element of volume can be computed
froma simple weighted averaging. In a practical problem, it is such average quantities
that concern us rather than the detail for every single molecule. Clearly, however, the
accuracy of computing average quantities, via the statistical approach, improves as
the number of molecules in the sampled volume increases. The kinetic theory of dilute
gases is well advanced, but that for dense gases and liquids is much less so owing to
the extreme complexity of having to include multiple collisions and intermolecular
forces in the theoretical formulation. The statistical approach is well covered in books
such as those by Kennard (1938); Hirschfelder, Curtiss, and Bird (1954); Schaaf and
Chambr e (1961); Vincenti and Kruger (1965); Kogan (1969); Chapman and Cowling
(1970); Cercignani (1988); and Bird (1994) as well as in review articles such as those
by Kogan (1973); Muntz (1989); and Oran, Oh, and Cybyk (1998).
In the statistical approach, the fraction of molecules in a given location and state
is the sole dependent variable. The independent variables for monatomic molecules
are time, the three spatial coordinates, and the three components of molecular ve-
locity. These describe a six-dimensional phase space.
6
For diatomic or polyatomic
molecules, the dimension of phase space is increased by the number of internal de-
grees of freedom. Orientation adds an extra dimension for molecules that are not
spherically symmetric. Finally, for mixtures of gases, separate probability distribution
functions are required for each species. Clearly, the complexity of the approach in-
creases dramatically as the dimension of phase space increases. The simplest problems
are, for example, those for steady, one-dimensional ow of a simple monatomic gas.
To simplify the problem we restrict the discussion here to monatomic gases hav-
ing no internal degrees of freedom. Furthermore, the uid is restricted to dilute gases
and molecular chaos is assumed. The former restriction requires the average dis-
tance between molecules to be an order of magnitude larger than their diameter .
That will almost guarantee that all collisions between molecules are binary colli-
sions and thus enable one to avoid the complexity of modeling multiple encounters.
7
The molecular chaos restriction improves the accuracy of computing the macro-
scopic quantities from the microscopic information. In essence, the volume over
which averages are computed has to have a sufcient number of molecules to re-
duce statistical errors. It can be shown that computing macroscopic ow properties
by averaging over a number of molecules will result in statistical uctuations with
a standard deviation of approximately 0.1%, if one million molecules are used,
and around 3% if one thousand molecules are used. The molecular chaos limit
requires the length scale L for the averaging process to be at least 100 times the
average distance between molecules (i.e., typical averaging over at least one million
molecules).
Figure 13.8, adapted from Bird (1994), shows the limits of validity of the di-
lute gas approximation (/ >7), the continuum approach (Kn <0.1, as discussed
6
The evolution equation of the probability distribution is considered; hence, time is the seventh indepen-
dent variable.
7
Dissociation and ionization phenomena involve triple collisions and therefore require separate treatment.
292 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Figure 13.8: Effective limits of different ow models [after Bird 1994].
previously in Section 13.2.2), and the neglect of statistical uctuations (L/ >100).
Using a molecular diameter of =4 10
10
m as an example, the three limits are
conveniently expressed as functions of the normalized gas density /
o
or number
density n/n
o
, where the reference densities
o
and n
o
are computed at standard condi-
tions. All three limits are straight lines in the loglog plot of Lversus /
o
, as depicted
in Figure 13.8. Note the shaded triangular wedge inside which both the Boltzmann
and NavierStokes equations are valid. Additionally, the lines describing the three
limits very nearly intersect at a single point. As a consequence, the continuum break-
down limit always lies between the dilute gas limit and the limit for molecular chaos.
As density or characteristic dimension is reduced in a dilute gas, the NavierStokes
model breaks down before the level of statistical uctuations becomes signicant. In
a dense gas, on the other hand, signicant uctuations may be present even when the
NavierStokes model is still valid.
The starting point in statistical mechanics is the Liouville equation, which ex-
presses the conservation of the N-particle distribution function in 6N-dimensional
phase space,
8
where Nis the number of particles under consideration. If only external
8
Three positions and three velocities for each molecule of a monatomic gas with no internal degrees of
freedom.
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 293
forces that do not depend on the velocity of the molecules,
9
the Liouville equation
for a system of N mass points reads
F
t
+
N
k=1
F
x
k
+
N
k=1
F
k
k
= 0 (13.49)
where F is the probability of nding a molecule at a particular point in phase space, t
is time,
k
is the three-dimensional velocity vector for the kth molecule, x
k
is the three-
dimensional position vector for the kth molecule, and F is the external force vector.
Note that the dot product in the preceding equation is carried out over each of the
three components of the vectors , x, and F and that the summation is over all mol-
ecules. Obviously such an equation is not tractable for a realistic number of particles.
A hierarchy of reduced distribution functions may be obtained by repeated inte-
gration of the Eq. (13.49). The nal equation in the hierarchy is for the single particle
distribution which also involves the two-particle distribution function. If molecular
chaos is assumed, that nal equation becomes a closed one (i.e., one equation in one
unknown) and is known as the Boltzmann equation, the fundamental relation of
the kinetic theory of gases. That nal equation in the hierarchy is the only one that
carries any hope of obtaining analytical solutions.
Asimpler direct derivation of the Boltzmann equation is provided by Bird (1994).
For monatomic gas molecules in binary collisions, the integro-differential Boltzmann
equation reads
(nf )
t
+
j
(nf )
x
j
+ F
j
(nf )
j
= J (f , f
), j = 1, 2, 3 (13.50)
where nf is the product of the number density and the normalized velocity distribu-
tion function (dn/n = f d), x
j
and
j
are respectively the coordinates and speeds
of a molecule,
10
F
j
is a known external force, and J (f , f
) =
_
_
4
0
n
2
(f
1
f f
1
)
r
d(d)
1
(13.51)
where the superscript
i
f d (13.54)
If the Boltzmann equation is nondimensionalized with a characteristic length L
and characteristic speed [2(k/m)T]
1/2
, where k is the Boltzmann constant, m is the
molecular mass, and T is temperature, the inverse Knudsen number appears explicitly
in the right-hand side of the equation as follows:
t
+
f
x
j
+
F
j
j
=
1
Kn
J (
f ,
f
), j = 1, 2, 3 (13.55)
where the superscript represents a dimensionless variable, and
f is nondimension-
alized using a reference number density n
o
.
The ve conservation equations for the transport of mass, momentum, and en-
ergy can be derived by multiplying the Boltzmann equation above by, respectively,
the molecular mass, momentum, and energy and then integrating over all possible
molecular velocities. Subject to the restrictions of dilute gas and molecular chaos
stated earlier, the Boltzmann equation is valid for all ranges of Knudsen number
from 0 to . Analytical solutions to this equation for arbitrary geometries are dif-
cult mostly because of the nonlinearity of the collision integral. Simple models of
this integral have been proposed to facilitate analytical solutions; see, for example,
Bhatnagar, Gross, and Krook (1954).
There are two important asymptotes to Eq. (13.55). First, as Kn , molec-
ular collisions become unimportant. This is the free-molecule ow regime depicted
in Figure 13.3 for Kn > 10, where the only important collision is that between a
gas molecule and the solid surface of an obstacle or a conduit. Analytical solutions
are then possible for simple geometries, and numerical simulations for complicated
geometries are straightforward once the surface-reection characteristics are accu-
rately modeled. Secondly, as Kn 0, collisions become important, and the ow
approaches the continuum regime of conventional uid dynamics. The second law
species a tendency for thermodynamic systems to revert to the equilibrium state,
smoothing out any discontinuities in macroscopic ow quantities. The number of
molecular collisions in the limit Kn 0 is so large that the ow approaches the
equilibrium state in a time short compared with the macroscopic time scale. For
example, for air at standard conditions (T = 288 K; p = 1 atm), each molecule
experiences, on the average, 10 collisions per nanosecond and travels 1 micron in
the same time period. Such a molecule has already forgotten its previous state after
1 ns. In a particular oweld, if the macroscopic quantities vary little over a distance
of 1 m or over a time interval of 1 ns, the ow of air at standard temperature and
pressure is near equilibrium.
At Kn = 0, the velocity distribution function is everywhere of the local equilib-
rium or Maxwellian form
f
(0)
=
n
n
o
3/2
exp[(
u)
2
] (13.56)
where
and u are, respectively, the dimensionless speeds of a molecule and of the
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 295
ow. In this Knudsen number limit, the velocity distribution of each element of the
uid instantaneously adjusts to the equilibrium thermodynamic state appropriate to
the local macroscopic properties as this molecule moves through the oweld. From
the continuum viewpoint, the ow is isentropic, and heat conduction and viscous
diffusion and dissipation vanish from the continuum conservation relations.
The ChapmanEnskog theory attempts to solve the Boltzmann equation by con-
sidering a small perturbation of
f from the equilibrium Maxwellian form. For small
Knudsen numbers, the distribution function can be expanded in terms of Kn in the
form of a power series
f =
f
(0)
+Kn
f
(1)
+Kn
2
f
(2)
+ (13.57)
By substituting the preceding series in the Boltzmann equation (13.55) and equating
terms of equal order, the following recurrent set of integral equations results:
J
_
f
(0)
,
f
(0)
_
= 0,
J
_
f
(0)
,
f
(1)
_
=
f
(0)
t
+
f
(0)
x
j
+
F
j
f
(0)
j
, . . . (13.58)
The rst integral is nonlinear, and its solution is the local Maxwellian distribution,
Eq. (13.56). The distribution functions
f
(1)
,
f
(2)
, and so forth each satisfy an in-
homogeneous linear equation whose solution leads to the transport terms needed
to close the continuum equations appropriate to the particular level of approxima-
tion. The continuum stress tensor and heat ux vector can be written in terms of
the distribution function, which in turn can be specied in terms of the macroscopic
velocity and temperature and their derivatives (Kogan 1973). The zeroth-order equa-
tion yields the Euler equations, the rst-order equation results in the linear transport
terms of the NavierStokes equations, the second-order equation gives the nonlinear
transport terms of the Burnett equations, and so on. Keep in mind, however, that
the Boltzmann equation as developed in this subsection is for a monatomic gas. This
excludes the all-important air, which is composed largely of diatomic nitrogen and
oxygen.
As discussed in Sections 13.2.2, 13.2.3, and 13.2.5, the NavierStokes equations
can and should be used up to a Knudsen number of 0.1. Beyond that, the transition
owregime commences (0.1 <Kn <10). In this owregime, the molecular mean free
path for a gas becomes signicant relative to a characteristic distance for important
ow-property changes to take place. The Burnett equations can be used to obtain
analytical and numerical solutions for at least a portion of the transition regime for
a monatomic gas, although their complexity has precluded realizing many results for
realistic geometries (Agarwal, Yun, and Balakrishnan 1999). There is also some de-
gree of uncertainty about the proper boundary conditions to use with the continuum
Burnett equations, and experimental validations of the results have been very scarce.
Additionally, as the gas ow further departs from equilibrium, the bulk viscosity
(= +
2
3
, where is the second coefcient of viscosity) is no longer zero, and the
Stokes hypothesis no longer holds (see Gad-el-Hak 1995 for an interesting summary
of the issue of bulk viscosity).
In the transition regime, the molecularly based Boltzmann equation cannot easily
be solved either unless the nonlinear collision integral is simplied. Thus, clearly the
transition regime is in dire need of alternative solution methods. The MDsimulations,
296 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
as mentioned earlier, are not suited for dilute gases. The best approach for the tran-
sition regime right now is the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method de-
veloped by Bird (1963, 1965, 1976, 1978, 1994) and briey described below. Some
recent reviews of DSMC include those by Muntz (1989), Cheng (1993), Cheng and
Emmanuel (1995), and Oran et al. (1998). The mechanics as well as the history of
the DSMC approach and its ancestors are well described in the book by Bird (1994).
Unlike molecular dynamics simulations, DSMC is a statistical computational ap-
proach to solving rareed gas problems. Both approaches treat the gas as discrete par-
ticles. Subject to the dilute gas and molecular chaos assumptions, the direct simulation
Monte Carlo method is valid for all ranges of Knudsen number, although the method
becomes quite expensive for Kn <0.1. Fortunately, this is the continuum regime in
which the NavierStokes equations can be used analytically or computationally. The
DSMC method is therefore ideal for the transition regime (0.1 <Kn <10), where
the Boltzmann equation is difcult to solve. The Monte Carlo method is, like its
name sake, a random number strategy based directly on the physics of the individual
molecular interactions. The idea is to track a large number of randomly selected, sta-
tistically representative particles and to use their motions and interactions to modify
their positions and states. The primary approximation of the DSMC method is to
uncouple the molecular motions and the intermolecular collisions over small time
intervals. A signicant advantage of this approximation is that the amount of com-
putation required is proportional to N, in contrast to N
2
, for molecular dynamics
simulations. In essence, particle motions are modeled deterministically, whereas col-
lisions are treated probabilistically, each simulated molecule representing a large
number of actual molecules. Typical computer runs of DSMC in the 1990s involve
tens of millions of intermolecular collisions and uidsolid interactions.
The DSMC computation is started from some initial condition and followed in
small time steps that can be related to physical time. Colliding pairs of molecules in a
small geometric cell in physical space are randomly selected after each computational
time step. Complex physics such as radiation, chemical reactions, and species concen-
trations can be included in the simulations without the necessity of nonequilibrium
thermodynamic assumptions that commonly afict nonequilibrium continuum-ow
calculations. Because DSMC is more computationally intensive than classical con-
tinuum simulations, it should therefore be used only when the continuum approach
is not feasible.
The DSMC technique is explicit and time marching and therefore always pro-
duces unsteady ow simulations. For macroscopically steady ows, Monte Carlo
simulation proceeds until a steady ow is established within a desired accuracy at
sufciently large time. The macroscopic ow quantities are then the time average of
all values calculated after reaching the steady state. For macroscopically unsteady
ows, ensemble averaging of many independent Monte Carlo simulations is carried
out to obtain the nal results within a prescribed statistical accuracy.
13.2.7 Liquid Flows
From the continuum point of view, liquids and gases are both uids obeying
the same equations of motion. For incompressible ows, for example, the Reynolds
number is the primary dimensionless parameter that determines the nature of the
oweld. It is true that water, for example, has density and viscosity that are, respec-
tively, three and two orders of magnitude higher than those for air, but if the Reynolds
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 297
number and geometry are matched, liquid and gas ows should be identical.
11
For
MEMS applications, however, we anticipate the possibility of nonequilibrium ow
conditions and the consequent invalidity of the NavierStokes equations and the
no-slip boundary conditions. Such circumstances can best be researched using the
molecular approach. This was discussed for gases in Section 13.2.6, and the corre-
sponding arguments for liquids will be given in this subsection. The literature on
non-Newtonian uids in general and polymers in particular is vast (for example,
the bibliographic survey by Nadolink and Haigh, 1995, cites over 4900 references
on polymer drag reduction alone) and provides a rich source of information on the
molecular approach for liquid ows.
Solids, liquids, and gases are distinguished merely by the degree of proximity
and the intensity of motions of their constituent molecules. In solids, the molecules
are packed closely and conned, each hemmed in by its neighbors (Chapman and
Cowling 1970). Only rarely would one solid molecule slip from its neighbors to
join a new set. As the solid is heated, molecular motion becomes more violent, and
a slight thermal expansion takes place. At a certain temperature that depends on
ambient pressure, sufciently intense motion of the molecules enables them to pass
freely fromone set of neighbors to another. The molecules are no longer conned but
are nevertheless still closely packed, and the substance is now considered a liquid.
Further heating of the matter eventually releases the molecules altogether, allowing
them to break the bonds of their mutual attractions. Unlike solids and liquids, the
resulting gas expands to ll any volume available to it.
Unlike solids, both liquids and gases cannot resist nite shear force without con-
tinuous deformation, that is, the denition of a uid medium. In contrast to the
reversible, elastic, static deformation of a solid, the continuous deformation of a
uid resulting from the application of a shear stress results in an irreversible work
that eventually becomes random thermal motion of the molecules, that is, viscous
dissipation. In a 1-m cube, there are around 25 million molecules of air at standard
temperature and pressure. The same cube would contain around 34 billion molecules
of water. Thus, liquid ows are continuum even in extremely small devices through
which gas ows would not. The average distance between molecules in the gas ex-
ample is one order of magnitude higher than the diameter of its molecules, whereas
that for the liquid phase approaches the molecular diameter. As a result, liquids are
almost incompressible. Their isothermal compressibility coefcient and bulk ex-
pansion coefcient are much smaller compared with those for gases. For water, for
example, a hundredfold increase in pressure leads to a less than 0.5% decrease in
volume. Sound speeds through liquids are also high relative to those for gases, and
as a result most liquid ows are incompressible.
12
The exception is propagation of
ultra-high-frequency sound waves and cavitation phenomena.
The mechanismby which liquids transport mass, momentum, and energy must be
very different from that for gases. In dilute gases, intermolecular forces play no role,
and the molecules spend most of their time in free ight between brief collisions during
which the molecules direction and speed abruptly change. The random molecular
motions are responsible for gaseous transport processes. In liquids, on the other
11
Barring phenomena unique to liquids such as cavitation, free surface ows, and so forth.
12
Note that we distinguish between a uid and a owbeing compressible or incompressible. For example,
the ow of the highly compressible air can be either compressible or incompressible.
298 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
hand, the molecules are closely packed though not xed in one position. In essence,
the liquid molecules are always in a collision state. Applying a shear force must create
a velocity gradient so that the molecules move relative to one another ad innitum
as long as the stress is applied. For liquids, momentum transport due to the random
molecular motion is negligible compared with that due to the intermolecular forces.
The straining between liquid molecules causes some to separate from their original
neighbors, bringing them into the force eld of new molecules. Across the plane of
the shear stress, the sum of all intermolecular forces must, on the average, balance
the imposed shear. Liquids at rest transmit only normal force, but when a velocity
gradient occurs, the net intermolecular force will have a tangential component.
The incompressible NavierStokes equations describe liquid ows under most
circumstances. Liquids, however, do not have as well-advanced a molecular-based
theory as that for dilute gases. The concept of mean free path is not very useful for
liquids, and the conditions under which a liquid ow fails to be in quasi-equilibrium
state are not well dened. There is no Knudsen number for liquid ows to guide
us through the maze. We do not know, from rst principles, the conditions under
which the no-slip boundary condition becomes inaccurate or the point at which the
(stress)(rate of strain) relation or the (heat ux)(temperature gradient) relation fails
to be linear. Certain empirical observations indicate that those simple relations that
we take for granted occasionally fail to model liquid ows accurately. For example,
it has been shown in rheological studies (Loose and Hess 1989) that non-Newtonian
behavior commences when the strain rate approximately exceeds twice the molecular
frequency-scale
=
u
y
2
1
(13.59)
where the molecular time scale is given by
=
_
m
2
_
1
2
(13.60)
where m is the molecular mass, and and are, respectively, the characteristic
length and energy scales for the molecules. For ordinary liquids such as water, this
time scale is extremely small, and the threshold shear rate for the onset of non-
Newtonian behavior is therefore extraordinarily high. For high-molecular-weight
polymers, on the other hand, m and are both many orders of magnitude higher
than their respective values for water, and the linear stress-strain relation breaks
down at realistic values of the shear rate.
The moving contact line, when a liquid spreads on a solid substrate, is an example
for which slip ow must be allowed to avoid singular or unrealistic behavior in the
NavierStokes solutions (Dussan and Davis 1974; Dussan 1976, 1979; Thompson
and Robbins 1989). Other examples for which slip ow must be admitted include
corner ows (Moffatt 1964; Koplik and Banavar 1995) and extrusion of polymer
melts from capillary tubes (Pearson and Petrie 1968; Richardson 1973; Den 1990).
Existing experimental results of liquid ow in microdevices are contradictory.
This is not surprising given the difculty of such experiments and the lack of a
guiding rational theory. Pfahler et al. (1990, 1991), Pfahler (1992), and Bau (1994)
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 299
summarize the relevant literature. For small-length-scale ows, a phenomenological
approach for analyzing the data is to dene an apparent viscosity
a
calculated so
that if it were used in the traditional no-slip NavierStokes equations instead of the
uid viscosity , the results would be in agreement with experimental observations.
Israelachvili (1986) and Gee et al. (1990) found that
a
= for thin-lm ows as
long as the lm thickness exceeds 10 molecular layers (5 nm). For thinner lms,
a
depends on the number of molecular layers and can be as much as 10
5
times
larger than . Chan and Horns (1985) results are somewhat different; the apparent
viscosity deviates from the uid viscosity for lms thinner than 50 nm.
In polar-liquid ows through capillaries, Migun and Prokhorenko (1987) re-
ported that
a
increases for tubes smaller than 1 m in diameter. In contrast, Debye
and Cleland (1959) reported
a
smaller than for parafn ow in porous glass with
average pore size several times larger than the molecular length scale. Experimenting
with microchannels ranging in depths from 0.5 to 50 m, Pfahler et al. (1991) found
that
a
is consistently smaller than for both liquid (isopropyl alcohol, silicone oil)
and gas (nitrogen, helium) ows in microchannels. For liquids, the apparent viscos-
ity decreases with decreasing channel depth. Other researchers using small capillaries
report that
a
is about the same as (Anderson and Quinn 1972; Tuckermann and
Pease 1981, 1982; Tuckermann 1984; Guvenc 1985; Nakagawa, Shoji, and Esashi
1990).
The preceding contradictory results point to the need for replacing phenomeno-
logical models by rst-principles ones. The lack of a molecular-based theory of
liquidsdespite extensive research by the rheology and polymer communities
leaves molecular dynamics simulations as the nearest weapon to the rst-principles
arsenal. Molecular dynamics simulations offer a unique approach to checking the
validity of the traditional continuum assumptions. However, as was pointed out in
Section 13.2.6, such simulations are limited to exceedingly minute ow extent.
Thompson and Troian (1997) provided molecular dynamics simulations to quan-
tify the slip-ow boundary condition dependence on shear rate. Recall the linear
Navier boundary condition introduced in Section 13.2.5,
u
w
= u
uid
u
wall
= L
s
u
y
w
(13.61)
where L
s
is the constant slip length, and
u
y
|
w
is the strain rate computed at the
wall. The goal of Thompson and Troians simulations was to determine the degree of
slip at a solidliquid interface as the interfacial parameters and the shear rate change.
In their simulations, a simple liquid underwent planar shear in a Couette cell as shown
in Figure 13.9. The typical cell measured 12.517.22h in units of molecular length
scale , where the channel depth h varied in the range of 16.7124.57, and the
corresponding number of molecules simulated ranged from1152 to 1728. The liquid
was treated as an isothermal ensemble of spherical molecules. A shifted Lennard
Jones 612 potential was used to model intermolecular interactions with energy and
length scales and and cut-off distance r
c
= 2.2:
V(r) = 4
__
r
_
12
_
r
_
6
_
r
c
_
12
+
_
r
c
_
6
_
(13.62)
The truncated potential was set to zero for r > r
c
.
300 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Figure 13.9: Velocity proles in a Couette ow geometry at differ-
ent interfacial parameters. All three proles are for U =
1
, and
h = 24.57. The dashed line is the no-slip Couette-ow solution
[after Thompson and Troian 1997].
The uidsolid interaction was also modeled with a truncated LennardJones po-
tential with energy and length scales
wf
and
wf
, and cut-off distance r
c
. The equilib-
riumstate of the uid was a well-dened liquid phase characterized by number density
n = 0.81
3
and temperature T = 1.1/k, where k is the Boltzmann constant.
The steady-state velocity proles resulting from Thompson and Troians (1997)
MD simulations are depicted in Figure 13.9 for different values of the interfacial
parameters
wf
,
wf
, and n
w
. These parameters, shown in units of the corresponding
uid parameters , , and n, characterize, respectively, the strength of the liquid
solid coupling, the thermal roughness of the interface, and the commensurability
of wall and liquid densities. The macroscopic velocity proles recover the expected
ow behavior from continuum hydrodynamics with boundary conditions involving
varying degrees of slip. Note that when slip exists, the shear rate no longer equals
U/h. The degree of slip increases (i.e., the amount of momentum transfer at the
walluid interface decreases) as the relative wall density n
w
increases or the strength
of the walluid coupling
wf
decreases; in other words, when the relative surface
energy corrugation of the wall decreases. Conversely, the corrugation is maximized
when the wall and uid densities are commensurate and the strength of the wall
uid coupling is large. In this case, the liquid feels the corrugations in the surface
energy of the solid owing to the atomic close-packing. Consequently, there is efcient
momentum transfer and the no-slip condition applies, or in extreme cases, a stick
boundary condition takes hold.
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 301
Figure 13.10: Variation of slip length and viscosity as functions of shear rate
[after Thompson and Troian 1997].
Variations of the slip length L
s
and viscosity as functions of shear rate
are shown in parts (a) and (b) of Figure 13.10, for ve different sets of interfa-
cial parameters. For Couette ow, the slip length is computed from its denition,
L
s
= u|
w
/ = (U/ h)/2. The slip length, viscosity, and shear rate are normal-
ized in the gure using the respective molecular scales for length , viscosity
3
,
and inverse time
1
. The viscosity of the uid is constant over the entire range
of shear rates (Figure 13.10b), indicating Newtonian behavior. As indicated earlier,
non-Newtonian behavior is expected for 2
1
, which is well above the shear
rates used in Thompson and Troians simulations.
At low shear rates, the slip-length behavior is consistent with the Navier model
(i.e., is independent of the shear rate). Its limiting value L
o
s
ranges from0 to 17 for
the range of interfacial parameters chosen (Figure 13.10a). In general, the amount
of slip increases with decreasing surface energy corrugation. Most interestingly, at
high shear rates the Navier condition breaks down as the slip length increases rapidly
with . The critical shear-rate value for the slip length to diverge,
c
, decreases as
the surface energy corrugation decreases. Surprisingly, the boundary condition is
nonlinear even though the liquid is still Newtonian. In dilute gases, as discussed in
Section 13.2.6, the linear slip condition and the NavierStokes equations, with their
302 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Figure 13.11: Universal relation of slip length as a function of shear
rate [after Thompson and Troian 1997].
linear stressstrain relation, are both valid to the same order of approximation in
Knudsen number. In other words, deviation from linearity is expected to take place
at the same value of Kn = 0.1. In liquids, in contrast, the slip length appears to
become nonlinear and to diverge at a critical value of shear rate well below the shear
rate at which the linear stressstrain relation fails. Moreover, the boundary condition
deviation from linearity is not gradual but is rather catastrophic. The critical value
of shear rate
c
signals the point at which the solid can no longer impart momentum
to the liquid. This means that the same liquid molecules sheared against different
substrates will experience varying amounts of slip and vice versa.
On the basis of the preceding results, Thompson and Troian (1997) suggested a
universal boundary condition at a solidliquid interface. Scaling the slip length L
s
by
its asymptotic limiting value L
o
s
and the shear rate by its critical value collapses
the data in the single curve shown in Figure 13.11. The data points are well described
by the relation
L
s
= L
o
s
_
1
c
_
1
2
(13.63)
The nonlinear behavior close to a critical shear rate suggests that the boundary
condition can signicantly affect ow behavior at macroscopic distances from the
wall. Experiments with polymers conrm this observation (Atwood and Schwalter
1989). The rapid change in the slip length suggests that for ows in the vicinity of
c
, small changes in surface properties can lead to large uctuations in the apparent
boundary condition. Thompson and Troian (1997) concluded that the Navier slip
condition is but the low-shear-rate limit of a more generalized universal relationship
that is nonlinear and divergent. Their relation provides a mechanismfor relieving the
stress singularity in spreading contact lines and corner ows, for it naturally allows
for varying degrees of slip on approach to regions of higher rate of strain.
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 303
To place the preceding results in physical terms, consider water
13
at a tem-
perature of T = 288 K. The energy scale in the LennardJones potential is then
= 3.62 10
21
J. For water, m = 2.99 10
26
kg, = 2.89 10
10
m, and at
standard temperature n = 3.35 10
28
molecules/m
3
. The molecular time scale can
thus be computed, = [m
2
/]
1/2
= 8.31 10
13
s. For the third case depicted
in Figure 13.11 (the open squares),
c
= 0.1, and the critical shear rate at which
the slip condition diverges is thus
c
= 1.2 10
11
s
1
. Such an enormous rate of
strain
14
may be found in extremely small devices having extremely high speeds. On
the other hand, the conditions to achieve a measurable slip of 17 (the solid circles
in Figure 13.10) are not difcult to encounter in microdevices: density of the solid
four times that of liquid and energy scale for walluid interaction that is one-fth
of the energy scale for liquid.
The limiting value of slip length is independent of the shear rate and can be
computed for water as L
o
s
= 17 = 4.91 10
9
m. Consider a water microbearing
having a shaft diameter of 100 m, rotation rate of 20,000 rpm, and a minimum gap
of h = 1 m. In this case, U = 0.1 m/s, and the no-slip shear rate is U/h = 10
5
s
1
.
When slip occurs at the limiting value just computed, the shear rate and the wall-slip
velocity are computed as follows:
=
U
h +2L
o
s
= 9.90 10
4
s
1
(13.64)
u|
w
= L
s
= 4.87 10
4
m/s (13.65)
As a result of the Navier slip, the shear rate is reduced by 1% from its no-slip
value, and the slip velocity at the wall is about 0.5% of U, which is small but not
insignicant.
13.2.8 Surface Phenomena
As mentioned in Section 13.2.1, the surface-to-volume ratio for a machine with a
characteristic length of 1 m is 1 m
1
, whereas that for a MEMS device having a size
of 1 m is 10
6
m
1
. The millionfold increase in surface area relative to the mass of
the minute device substantially affects the transport of mass, momentum, and energy
through the surface. Obviously, surface effects dominate in small devices. The surface
boundary conditions in MEMS ows have already been discussed in Sections 13.2.5
and 13.2.7. In microdevices, it has been shown that it is possible to have measurable
slip velocity and temperature jump at a soliduid interface. In this subsection, we
illustrate other ramications of the large surface-to-volume ratio unique to MEMS
and provide a molecular viewpoint for surface forces.
In microdevices, both radiative and convective heat loss or gain are enhanced by
the huge surface-to-volume ratio. Consider a device having a characteristic length L
s
.
Use of the lumped capacitance method to compute the rate of convective heat transfer,
for example, is justied if the Biot number (hL
s
/
s
, where h is the convective heat
13
Water molecules are complex ones forming directional, short-range covalent bonds and thus require
a more complex potential than the LennardJones to describe the intermolecular interactions. For
the purpose of the qualitative example described here, however, we use the computational results of
Thompson and Troian (1997), who employed the LJ potential.
14
Note however that
c
for high-molecular-weight polymers would be many orders of magnitude smaller
than the value developed here for water.
304 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
transfer coefcient of the uid and
s
is the thermal conductivity of the solid) is
less than 0.1. Small L
s
implies small Biot number and a nearly uniform temperature
within the solid. Within this approximation, the rate at which heat is lost to the
surrounding uid is given by
s
L
3
s
c
s
dT
s
dt
= hL
2
s
(T
s
T
) (13.66)
where
s
and c
s
are, respectively, the density and specic heat of the solid, T
s
is its (uni-
form) temperature, and T
T
i
T
= exp
_
t
T
_
(13.67)
where the time constant T is given by
T =
s
L
3
s
c
s
hL
2
s
(13.68)
For small devices, the time it takes the solid to cool down is proportionally small.
Clearly, the millionfold increase in surface-to-volume ratio implies a proportional
increase in the rate at which heat escapes. Identical scaling arguments can be made
regarding mass transfer.
Another effect of the diminished scale is the increased importance of surface forces
and the waning importance of body forces. On the basis of biological studies, Went
(1968) concluded that the demarcation length scale is around 1 mm. Below that,
surface forces dominate over gravitational forces. A 10-mm piece of paper will fall
down when gently placed on a smooth, vertical wall, whereas a 0.1-mm piece will
stick. Try it! Stiction is a major problem in MEMS applications. Certain structures
such as long, thin polysilicon beams and large, thin comb drives have a propensity to
stick to their substrates and thus fail to perform as designed (Mastrangelo and Hsu
1992; Tang, Nguyen, and Howe 1989).
Conventional dry friction between two solids in relative motion is proportional
to the normal force, which is usually a component of the moving device weight.
The friction is independent of the contact-surface area because the van der Waals
cohesive forces are negligible relative to the weight of the macroscopic device. In
MEMS applications, the cohesive intermolecular forces between two surfaces are
signicant, and the stiction is independent of the device mass but is proportional to
its surface area. The rst micromotor did not movedespite large electric current
through ituntil the contact area between the 100-micron rotor and the substrate
was reduced signicantly by placing dimples on the rotors surface (Fan, Tai, and
Muller 1988, 1989; Tai and Muller 1989).
One last example of surface effects that to my knowledge has not been investigated
for microows is the adsorbed layer in gaseous wall-bounded ows. It is well known
(see, for example, Brunauer 1944; Lighthill 1963b) that when a gas ows in a duct,
the gas molecules are attracted to the solid surface by the van der Waals and other
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 305
forces of cohesion. The potential energy of the gas molecules drops upon reaching the
surface. The adsorbed layer partakes of the thermal vibrations of the solid, and the gas
molecules can only escape when their energy exceeds the potential energy minimum.
In equilibrium, at least part of the solid would be covered by a monomolecular
layer of adsorbed gas molecules. Molecular species with signicant partial pressure
relative to their vapor pressuremay locally formlayers two or more molecules thick.
Consider, for example, the ow of a mixture of dry air and water vapor at standard
temperature and pressure. The energy of adsorption of water is much larger than that
for nitrogen and oxygen, making it more difcult for water molecules to escape the
potential energy trap. It follows that the lifetime of water molecules in the adsorbed
layer signicantly exceeds that for the air molecules (by 60,000 folds, in fact) and, as
a result, the thin surface layer would be mostly water. For example, if the proportion
of water vapor in the ambient air is 1:1000 (i.e., very lowhumidity level), the ratio of
water to air in the adsorbed layer would be 60:1. Microscopic roughness of the solid
surface causes partial condensation of the water along portions having sufciently
strong concave curvature. Thus, surfaces exposed to nondry air ows are mainly
liquid water surfaces. In most applications, this thin adsorbed layer has little effect
on the owdynamics despite the density and viscosity of liquid water being far greater
than those for air. In MEMS applications, however, the layer thickness may not be an
insignicant portion of the characteristic ow dimension, and the water layer may
have a measurable effect on the gas ow. A hybrid approach of molecular dynamics
and continuum ow simulations or MDMonte Carlo simulations may be used to
investigate this issue.
It should be noted that quite recently Majumdar and Mezic (1998, 1999) have
studied the stability and rupture into droplets of thin liquid lms on solid surfaces.
They pointed out that the free energy of a liquid lm consists of a surface tension
component as well as highly nonlinear volumetric intermolecular forces resulting
from van der Waals, electrostatic, hydration, and elastic strain interactions. For
water lms on hydrophilic surfaces such as silica and mica, Majumdar and Mezic
(1998) estimated the equilibrium lm thickness to be about 0.5 nm (2 monolayers)
for a wide range of ambient-air relative humidities. The equilibrium thickness grows
very sharply, however, as the relative humidity approaches 100%.
Majumdar and Mezics (1998, 1999) results open many questions. What are
the stability characteristics of their water lm in the presence of air ow above it?
Would this water lm affect the accommodation coefcient for microduct air ow?
In a modern Winchester-type hard disk, the drive mechanism has a readwrite head
that oats 50 nm above the surface of the spinning platter. The head and platter
together with the air layer in between form a slider bearing. Would the computer
performance be affected adversely by the high relative humidity on a particular day
when the adsorbed water lm is no longer thin? If a microduct hauls liquid water,
would the water lm adsorbed by the solid walls inuence the effective viscosity
of the water ow? Electrostatic forces can extend to almost 1 micron (the Debye
length), and that length is known to be highly pH-dependent. Would the water owbe
inuenced by the surface and liquid chemistry? Would this explain the contradictory
experimental results of liquid ows in microducts discussed in Section 13.2.7?
The few examples above illustrate the importance of surface effects in small de-
vices. From the continuum viewpoint, forces at a soliduid interface are the limit
306 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
of pressure and viscous forces acting on a parallel elementary area displaced into the
uid when the displacement distance is allowed to tend to zero. From the molecular
point of view, all macroscopic surface forces are ultimately traced to intermolecular
forces, which subject is extensively covered in the book by Israelachvilli (1991) and
references therein. Here we provide a very brief introduction to the molecular view-
point. The four forces in nature are (1) the strong and (2) weak forces describing
the interactions between neutrons, protons, electrons, and so forth; (3) the electro-
magnetic forces between atoms and molecules; and (4) gravitational forces between
masses. The range of action of the rst two forces is around 10
5
nm, and hence
neither concerns us overly in MEMS applications. The electromagnetic forces are ef-
fective over a much larger though still small distance on the order of the interatomic
separations (0.10.2 nm). Effects over longer rangeseveral orders of magnitude
longercan and do rise from the short-range intermolecular forces. For example,
the rise of the liquid column in capillaries and the action of detergent molecules in
removing oily dirt from fabric are the result of intermolecular interactions. Grav-
itational forces decay with the distance to second power, whereas intermolecular
forces decay much quicker, typically with the seventh power. Cohesive forces are
therefore negligible once the distance between molecules exceeds few molecular di-
ameters, whereas massive bodies like stars and planets are still strongly interacting,
via gravity, over astronomical distances.
Electromagnetic forces are the source of all intermolecular interactions and the
cohesive forces holding atoms and molecules together in solids and liquids. They can
be classied into (1) purely electrostatic forces arising from the Coulomb force be-
tween charges, interactions between charges, permanent dipoles, quadrupoles, and
so forth; (2) polarization forces arising from the dipole moments induced in atoms
and molecules by the electric eld of nearby charges and permanent dipoles; and
(3) quantum mechanical forces that give rise to covalent or chemical bonding and
to repulsive steric or exchange interactions that balance the attractive forces at very
short distances. The HellmanFeynman theorem of quantum mechanics states that
once the spatial distribution of the electron clouds has been determined by solv-
ing the appropriate Schr odinger equation, intermolecular forces may be calculated
on the basis of classical electrostatics, in effect reducing all intermolecular forces
to Coulombic forces. Note, however, that intermolecular forces exist even when
the molecules are totally neutral. Solutions of the Schr odinger equation for general
atoms and molecules are not easy of course, and alternative modeling is sought to
represent intermolecular forces. The van der Waals attractive forces are usually rep-
resented with a potential that varies as the inverse-sixth power of distance, whereas
the repulsive forces are represented with either a power or an exponential potential.
A commonly used potential between two molecules is the generalized Lennard
Jones (LJ 612) pair potential given by
V
i j
(r) = 4
_
c
i j
_
r
_
12
d
i j
_
r
_
6
_
(13.69)
where V
i j
is the potential energy between two particles i and j , r is the distance
between the two molecules, and are respectively characteristic energy and length
scales, and c
i j
and d
i j
are parameters to be chosen for the particular uid and solid
combinations under consideration. The rst term on the right-hand side is the strong
13.2 FLOW PHYSICS 307
repulsive force that is felt when two molecules are at extremely close range compara-
ble to the molecular length scale. That short-range repulsion prevents overlap of the
molecules in physical space. The second term is the weaker van der Waals attractive
force that commences when the molecules are sufciently close (several times ).
That negative part of the potential represents the attractive polarization interaction
of neutral, spherically symmetric particles. The power of 6 associated with this term
is derivable from quantum mechanics considerations, whereas the power of the re-
pulsive part of the potential is found empirically. The LennardJones potential is zero
at very large distances, has a weak negative peak at r slightly larger than , is zero
at r = , and is innite as r 0.
The force eld resulting from this potential is given by
F
i j
(r) =
V
i j
r
=
48
_
c
i j
_
r
_
13
d
i j
2
_
r
_
7
_
(13.70)
Atypical LJ 612 potential and force eld are shown in Figure 13.12, for c = d = 1.
The minimum potential V
min
= corresponds to the equilibrium position (zero
force) and occurs at r = 1.12. The attractive van der Waals contribution to the
minimum potential is 2, whereas the repulsive energy contribution is +. Thus,
the inverse 12th-power repulsive force term decreases the strength of the binding
energy at equilibrium by 50%.
The LJ potential is commonly used in molecular dynamics simulations to model
intermolecular interactions between dense gas or liquid molecules and between uid
and solid molecules. As mentioned in Section 13.2.7, such potential is not accurate
for complex substances such as water whose molecules form directional covalent
bonds. As a result, MD simulations for water are much more involved.
Figure 13.12: Typical LennardJones 612 potential and the intermolecular force eld resulting from
it. Only a small portion of the potential function is shown for clarity.
308 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
13.3 Typical Fluid Applications
13.3.1 Introductory Remarks
The physics of uid ows in microdevices was covered in Section 13.2. In this
section, we provide several examples of useful applications of MEMS devices in uid
mechanics. The list is by no means exhaustive but includes the use of MEMS-based
sensors and actuators for ow diagnosis and control, a recently developed viscous
micropumpmicroturbine, and analysis of a journal microbearing. The articles by
Gad-el-Hak (1999) and L ofdahl and Gad-el-Hak (1999) offer more detail on some
of the topics covered in this section. From the perspective of the present monograph,
using microsensors and microactuators for owcontrol is a very important topic and
will be deferred to the following chapter.
13.3.2 Turbulence Measurements
Microelectromechanical systems offer great opportunities for better ow diagno-
sis and controlparticularly for turbulent ows. The batch processing fabrication
of microdevices makes it possible to produce large numbers of identical transducers
within extremely tight tolerance. Microsensors and microactuators are small and in-
expensive, combine electronic and mechanical parts, have low energy consumption,
and can be distributed over a wide area. In this subsection we discuss the advantages
of using MEMS-based sensors for turbulence measurements, and in the following
subsection the issue of ow control will be addressed.
Turbulence remains largely an enigmaanalytically unapproachable yet prac-
tically very important. For a turbulent ow, the dependent variables are random
functions of space and time, and no straightforward method exists for analytically
obtaining stochastic solutions to the governing nonlinear, partial differential equa-
tions. The statistical approach to solving the NavierStokes equations sets a more
modest aim of solving for the average ow quantities rather than the instantaneous
ones. But as a result of the nonlinearity of the governing equations, this approach
always leads to more unknowns than equations (the closure problem), and solutions
based on rst principles are again not possible. Turbulence, therefore, is a conun-
drum that appears to yield its secrets only to physical and numerical experiments,
provided that the wide band of relevant scales is fully resolveda far-from-trivial
task, particularly at high Reynolds numbers.
Aturbulent oweld is composed of a hierarchy of eddies having a broad range of
time and length scales. The largest eddies have a spatial extension of approximately
the same size as the width of the oweld, whereas the smallest eddies are of the size
at which viscous effects become dominant and energy is transferred from kinetic into
internal. The ratio of the smallest length scalethe Kolmogorov microscale to
the largest scale is related to the turbulence Reynolds number as follows:
_
u
3
4
= Re
3
4
(13.71)
Similar expressions can be written for time and velocity scales (see, for example,
Tennekes and Lumley 1972). Not only does a sensor have to be sufciently small
to resolve the smallest eddies, but multisensors distributed over a large volume are
needed to detect any ow structures at the largest scale. Clearly the problem worsens
as the Reynolds number increases.
13.3 TYPICAL FLUID APPLICATIONS 309
In wall-bounded ows, the shear-layer thickness provides a measure of the largest
eddies in the ow. The smallest scale is the viscous wall unit. Viscous forces dominate
over inertia in the near-wall region. The characteristic scales there are obtained from
the magnitude of the mean vorticity in the region and its viscous diffusion away from
the wall. Thus, the viscous time scale, t
=
_
U
y
w
_
1
(13.72)
where U is the mean streamwise velocity. The viscous length scale,
, is determined
by the characteristic distance by which the (spanwise) vorticity is diffused from the
wall and is thus given by
U
y
w
(13.73)
where is the kinematic viscosity. The wall velocity scale (so-called friction velocity
u
U
y
w
=
_
(13.74)
where
w
is the mean shear stress at the wall, and is the uid density. A wall unit
implies scaling with the viscous scales, and the usual ()
+
notation is used; for example,
y
+
= y/
= yu
/. In the wall region, the characteristic length for the large eddies
is y itself, whereas the Kolmogorov scale is related to the distance from the wall y as
follows:
+
u
(y
+
)
1
4
(13.75)
where is the von K arm an constant ( 0.41). As y
+
changes in the range of 15 (the
extent of the viscous sublayer), changes from 0.8 to 1.2 wall units.
It is clear from the above that the spatial and temporal resolutions for any probe
to be used to resolve high-Reynolds-number turbulent ows are extremely tight. For
example, both the Kolmogorov scale and the viscous length scale change from few
microns at the typical eld Reynolds numberbased on the momentum thickness
of 10
6
to a couple of hundred microns at the typical laboratory Reynolds number of
10
3
, and MEMS sensors for pressure, velocity, temperature and shear stress are at
least one order of magnitude smaller than conventional sensors (Ho and Tai 1996;
L ofdahl, K alvesten, and Stemme 1996). The small size of MEMS sensors improves
both the spatial and temporal resolutions of the measurements, typically by a few
microns and few microseconds, respectively. For example, a microhot-wire (called
hot point) has very small thermal inertia, and the diaphragm of a micropressure-
transducer has correspondingly fast dynamic response. Moreover, the microsensors
extreme miniaturization and low energy consumption make them ideal for moni-
toring the ow state without appreciably affecting it. Lastly, literally hundreds of
microsensors can be fabricated on the same silicon chip at a reasonable cost, making
them well suited for distributed measurements. The UCLACaltech team (see, for
310 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
example, Ho and Tai 1996, 1998 and references therein) has been very effective in
developing many MEMS-based sensors and actuators for turbulence diagnosis and
control.
13.3.3 Micropumps
There have been several studies of microfabricated pumps. Some of them use
nonmechanical effects. The Knudsen pump mentioned in Section 13.2.5 uses the
thermal-creep effect to move rareed gases from one chamber to another. Ion-drag
is used in electrohydrodynamic pumps (Bart et al. 1990; Richter et al. 1991; Fuhr
et al. 1992); these rely on the electrical properties of the uid and are thus not suitable
for many applications. Valveless pumping by ultrasound has also been proposed
(Moroney, White, and Howe 1991) but produces very little pressure difference.
Mechanical pumps based on conventional centrifugal or axial turbomachinery
will not work at micromachine scales at which the Reynolds numbers are typically
small (on the order of 1 or less). Centrifugal forces are negligible and, furthermore,
the Kutta condition through which lift is normally generated is invalid when inertial
forces are vanishingly small. In general there are three ways in which mechanical
micropumps can work:
(13.76)
where U is the prescribed bulk velocity in the channel, a is the rotor radius, and is
the kinematic viscosity of the uid.
Figure 13.14 shows the dimensionless rotor speed as a function of the bulk velocity
for two dimensionless channel widths W= and W= 0.6. In these simulations, the
dimensionless channel depth is H = 2.5, and the rotor eccentricity is /
max
= 0.9.
The relation is linear, as was the case for the pump problem. The slope of the lines is
0.37 for the two-dimensional turbine and 0.33 for the narrowchannel with W= 0.6.
This means that the induced rotor speed is, respectively, 0.37 and 0.33 of the bulk
Figure 13.14: Turbine rotation as a function of the bulk velocity
in the channel [after DeCourtye et al. 1998].
13.3 TYPICAL FLUID APPLICATIONS 313
velocity in the channel.
15
For the pump, the corresponding numbers were 11.11
for the two-dimensional case and 100 for the three-dimensional case. Although it
appears that the side walls have bigger inuence on the pump performance, it should
be noted that in the turbine case a vastly higher pressure drop is required in the three-
dimensional duct to yield the same bulk velocity as that in the two-dimensional duct
(dimensionless pressure drop of p
p4a
2
/
2
= 29 versus p
= 1.5).
The turbine characteristics are dened by the relation between the shaft speed
and the applied load. A turbine load results in a moment on the shaft, which at
steady state balances the torque due to viscous stresses. At a xed bulk velocity,
the rotor speed is determined for different loads on the turbine. Again, the turbine
characteristics are linear in the Stokes (creeping) ow regime, but the side walls have
weaker, though still adverse, effect on the device performance as compared with the
pump case. For a given bulk velocity, the rotor speed drops linearly as the external
load on the turbine increases. At large enough loads, the rotor will not spin, and
maximum rotation is achieved when the turbine is subjected to zero load.
At present it is difcult to measure ow rates on the order of 10
12
m
3
/s
(1 nl/s). One possible way is to collect the efuent directly over time. This is use-
ful for calibration but is not practical for on-line ow measurement. Another is to
use heat transfer from a wire or lm to determine the local ow rate, as in a thermal
anemometer. Heat transfer from slowly moving uids is mainly by conduction, and
thus temperature gradients can be large. This is undesirable for biological and other
uids easily damaged by heat. The viscous mechanism that has been proposed and
veried for pumping may be turned around and used for measuring. As demonstrated
in this subsection, a freely rotating cylinder eccentrically placed in a duct will rotate
at a rate proportional to the ow rate owing to a turbine effect. In fact, other geome-
tries such as a freely rotating sphere in a cylindrical tube should also behave similarly.
The calibration constant, which depends on systemparameters such as geometry and
bearing friction, should be determined computationally to ascertain the practical vi-
ability of such a microow meter. Geometries that are simplest to fabricate should
be explored and studied in detail.
13.3.5 Microbearings
Many of the micromachines use rotating shafts and other moving parts that carry
a load and need uid bearings for support, and most of them operate with air or
water as the lubricating uid. The uid mechanics of these bearings are very different
compared with that of their larger cousins. Their study falls in the area of microuid
mechanics, an emerging discipline that has been greatly stimulated by its applications
to micromachines and is the subject of this chapter.
Macroscale journal bearings develop their load-bearing capacity from large pres-
sure differences that are a consequence of the presence of a viscous uid, an ec-
centricity between the shaft and its housing, a large surface speed of the shaft,
and a small clearance to diameter ratio. Several closed-form solutions of the no-
slip ow in a macrobearing have been developed. Wannier (1950) used modied
Cartesian coordinates to nd an exact solution to the biharmonic equation governing
15
The rotor speed can never, of course, exceed the uid velocity even if there is no load on the turbine.
Without load, the integral of the viscous shear stress over the entire surface area of the rotor is exactly
zero, and the turbine achieves its highest, albeit nite, rpm.
314 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
two-dimensional journal bearings in the no-slip, creeping ow regime. Kamal (1966)
and Ashino and Yoshida (1975) worked in bipolar coordinates; they assumed a gen-
eral form for the stream function with several constants that were determined using
the boundary conditions. Though all these methods work if there is no slip, they can-
not be readily adapted to slip ow. The basic reason is that the ow pattern changes
if there is slip at the walls, and the assumed form of the solution is no longer valid.
Microbearings are different in the following aspects: (1) being so small, it is dif-
cult to manufacture them with a clearance that is much smaller than the diameter of
the shaft; (2) because of the small shaft size, their surface speed, at normal rotational
speeds, is also small;
16
and (3) air bearings in particular may be small enough for
noncontinuum effects to become important. For these reasons the hydrodynamics of
lubrication are very different at microscales. The lubrication approximation that is
normally used is no longer directly applicable, and other effects come into play. From
an analytical point of view there are three consequences of the preceding character-
istics: uid inertia is negligible, slip ow may be important for air and other gases,
and relative shaft clearance need not be small.
In a recent study, Maureau et al. (1997) analyzed microbearings represented as
an eccentric cylinder rotating in a stationary housing. The ow Reynolds number
was assumed small, the clearance between shaft and housing was not small relative
to the overall bearing dimensions, and there was slip at the walls due to nonequi-
librium effects. The two-dimensional governing equations were written in terms of
the streamfunction in bipolar coordinates. Following the method of Jeffery (1920),
Maureau et al. (1997) succeeded in obtaining an exact innite-series solution of the
NavierStokes equations for the specied geometry and ow conditions. In contrast
to macrobearings and owing to the large clearance, ow in a microbearing is char-
acterized by the possibility of a recirculation zone that strongly affects the velocity
and pressure elds. For high values of the eccentricity and low slip factors, the ow
develops a recirculation region, as shown in the streamlines plot in Figure 13.15.
From the innite-series solution the frictional torque and the load-bearing ca-
pacity can be determined. The results show that both are similarly affected by the
eccentricity and the slip factor: they increase with the former and decrease with the
latter. For a given load, there is a corresponding eccentricity that generates a force
sufcient to separate shaft from housing (i.e., sufcient to prevent solid-to-solid con-
tact). As the load changes, the rotational center of the shaft shifts a distance necessary
for the forces to balance. It is interesting to note that for a weight that is vertically
downwards, the equilibrium displacement of the center of the shaft is in the horizon-
tal direction. This can lead to complicated rotor dynamics governed by mechanical
inertia, viscous damping, and pressure forces. A study of these dynamics may be of
interest. Real microbearings have nite shaft lengths, and end walls and other three-
dimensional effects inuence the bearing characteristics. Numerical simulations of
the three-dimensional problem can readily be carried out and may also be of interest
to the designers of microbearings. Other potential research includes determination of
a criterion for onset of cavitation in liquid bearings. From the results of these studies,
information related to load, rotational speed, and geometry can be generated that
would be useful for the designer.
16
The microturbomachines being developed presently at MIT operate at shaft rotational speeds on the
order of 1 million rpmand are therefore operating at different owregimes fromthose considered here.
13.4 PARTING REMARKS 315
Figure 13.15: Effect of slip factor and eccentricity on the microbearing stream-
lines. From top to bottom, eccentricity changes as = 0.2, 0.5, 0.8. From left
to right, slip factor changes as S (
2v
v
)Kn = 0, 0.1, 0.5 [after Maureau et al.
1997].
Finally, Piekos et al. (1997) have used full NavierStokes computations to
study the stability of ultra-high-speed gas microbearings. They concluded that it
is possibledespite signicant design constraintsto attain stability for specic
bearings to be used with the MIT microturbomachines (Epstein and Senturia 1997;
Epstein et al. 1997), which incidentally operate at much higher Reynolds numbers
(and rpm) than the micropumps, microturbines, and microbearings considered thus
far in this and the previous two subsections. According to Piekos et al. (1997), high-
speed bearings are more robust than low-speed ones owing to their reduced running
eccentricities and the large loads required to maintain them.
13.4 Parting Remarks
The 40-year-old vision of Richard Feynman of building minute machines is now
a reality. Microelectromechanical systems have witnessed explosive growth during
the last decade and are nding increased applications in a variety of industrial and
medical elds. The physics of uid ows in microdevices and some representative
applications have been explored in this chapter. Although we nowknowconsiderably
more than we did just few years ago, much physics remains to be explored so that
316 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
rational tools can be developed for the design, fabrication, and operation of MEMS
devices.
The traditional NavierStokes model of uid ows with no-slip boundary condi-
tions works only for a certain range of the governing parameters. This model basically
demands two conditions:
1. That the uid is a continuum, which is almost always satised because there
are usually more than 1 million molecules in the smallest volume in which
appreciable macroscopic changes take place. This is the molecular chaos
restriction.
2. The ow is not too far from thermodynamic equilibrium, which is satised
if there are a sufcient number of molecular encounters during a time period
small compared with the smallest time scale for ow changes. During this
time period the average molecule will have moved a distance small compared
with the smallest-ow length scale.
For gases, the Knudsen number determines the degree of rarefaction and the
applicability of traditional ow models. As Kn 0, the time and length scales of
molecular encounters are vanishingly small compared with those for the ow, and
the velocity distribution of each element of the uid instantaneously adjusts to the
equilibrium thermodynamic state appropriate to the local macroscopic properties as
this molecule moves through the oweld. From the continuum viewpoint, the ow
is isentropic and heat conduction and viscous diffusion and dissipation vanish from
the continuum conservation relations, leading to the Euler equations of motion. At
small but nite Kn, the NavierStokes equations describe near-equilibriumcontinuum
ows.
Slip ow must be taken into account for Kn > 0.001. The slip boundary condi-
tion is at rst linear in Knudsen number then nonlinear effects take over beyond a
Knudsen number of 0.1. At the same transition regime (i.e., 0.1 <Kn <10), the lin-
ear (stress)(rate of strain) and (heat ux)(temperature gradient) relationsneeded
to close the NavierStokes equationsalso break down, and alternative continuum
equations (e.g., Burnett) or molecular-based models must be invoked. In the tran-
sition regime, provided that the dilute gas and molecular chaos assumptions hold,
solutions to the difcult Boltzmann equation are sought, but physical simulations
such as Monte Carlo methods are more readily executed in this range of Knudsen
number. In the free-molecule ow regime (i.e., Kn >10), the nonlinear collision in-
tegral is negligible and the Boltzmann equation is drastically simplied. Analytical
solutions are possible in this case for simple geometries, and numerical integration
of the Boltzmann equation is straightforward for arbitrary geometries provided that
the surface-reection characteristics are accurately modeled.
Gaseous ows are often compressible in microdevices even at lowMach numbers.
Viscous effects can cause sufcient pressure drop and density changes for the ow to
be treated as compressible. In a long, constant-area microduct, all Knudsen number
regimes may be encountered, and the degree of rarefaction increases along the tube.
The pressure drop is nonlinear, and the Mach number increases downstream, limited
only by choked-ow condition.
Similar deviation and breakdown of the traditional NavierStokes equations oc-
cur for liquids as well, but there the situation is more murky. Existing experiments
13.4 PARTING REMARKS 317
are contradictory. There is no kinetic theory of liquids, and rst-principles prediction
methods are scarce. Molecular dynamics simulations can be used, but they are lim-
ited to extremely small ow extents. Nevertheless, measurable slip is predicted from
MD simulations at realistic shear rates in microdevices.
Microelectromechanical systems are nding increased applications in the diag-
nosis and control of turbulent ows. The use of microsensors and microactuators
promises a quantum leap in the performance of reactive-ow control systems and is
now in the realm of the possible for future practical devices (Chapter 14). Simple,
viscous-based micropumps can be utilized for microdosage delivery, and microtur-
bines can be used for measuring ow rates in the nanoliter per second range. Both of
these can be of value in several medical applications. Much nontraditional physics
is still to be learned, and many exciting applications of microdevices are yet to be
discovered. The future is bright for this emerging eld of science and technology.
Richard Feynman was right about the possibility of building mite-size machines but
was somewhat cautious in forecasting that such machines, although they would be
fun to make, might or might not be useful.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Frontiers of Flow Control
There is always an easy solution to every human problemneat, plausible
and wrong.
(Henry Louis Mencken, 18801956)
As for the future, your task is not to foresee, but to enable it.
(Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exup ery, 19001944, in
Citadelle (The Wisdom of the Sands))
PROLOGUE
In contrast to the early chapters, in the present chapter I will emphasize the frontiers
of the eld of ow control, pondering mostly the control of turbulent ows. I will
review the important advances in the eld that have taken place during the past few
years and are anticipated to dominate progress in the future, essentially covering the
fth era outlined in Section 1.2. By comparison with laminar ow control or sepa-
ration prevention, the control of turbulent ow remains a very challenging problem.
Flow instabilities quickly magnify near critical ow regimes, and therefore delay-
ing transition or separation is a relatively easier task. In contrast, classical control
strategies are often ineffective for fully turbulent ows. Newer ideas for turbulent
ow control to achieve skin-friction drag reduction, for example, focus on the direct
onslaught on coherent structures. Spurred by the recent developments in chaos con-
trol, microfabrication, and soft computing tools, reactive control of turbulent ows
through which sensors detect oncoming coherent structures and actuators attempt to
modulate these quasi-periodic events favorably is nowin the realmof the possible for
future practical devices. In this last chapter, I will provide estimates for the number,
size, frequency, and energy consumption of the sensor and actuator arrays needed to
control the turbulent boundary layer on a full-scale aircraft or submarine.
14.1 Introduction
14.1.1 The Taming of the Shrew
When one considers the extreme complexity of the turbulence problem in general
and the unattainability of rst-principles analytical solutions in particular, it is not
318
14.1 INTRODUCTION 319
surprising that controlling a turbulent ow remains a challenging task mired in
empiricism and unfullled promises and aspirations. Brute force suppression, or
taming, of turbulence via active, energy-consuming control strategies is always
possible, but the penalty for doing so often exceeds any potential benets. The
artice is to achieve a desired effect with minimum energy expenditure. This is of
course easier said than done. Indeed, suppressing turbulence is as arduous as the
taming of the shrew. The former task will be emphasized throughout this chapter,
but for now we reect on a short verse from the latter.
From William Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew:
Curtis (Petruchios servant, in charge of his country house): Is she so hot a shrew as shes
reported?
Grumio (Petruchios personal lackey): She was, good Curtis, before this frost. But thou
knowst winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tamed my old master, and my
new mistress, and myself, fellow Curtis.
14.1.2 Control of Turbulence
Numerous methods of ow control have already been successfully implemented
in practical engineering devices. Delaying laminar-to-turbulence transition to reason-
able Reynolds numbers and preventing separation can readily be accomplished using
a myriad of passive and predetermined active control strategies. Such classical tech-
niques have been reviewed in the preceding chapters of this book and by, among oth-
ers, Bushnell (1983, 1994); Wilkinson et al. (1988); Bushnell and McGinley (1989);
Gad-el-Hak (1989); Bushnell and Hefner (1990); Fiedler and Fernholz (1990);
Gad-el-Hak and Bushnell (1991a,b); Barnwell and Hussaini (1992); Viswanath
(1995); and Joslin, Erlebacher, and Hussaini (1996). Yet, very few of the classi-
cal strategies are effective in controlling free-shear or wall-bounded turbulent ows.
Serious limitations exist for some familiar control techniques when applied to certain
turbulent ow situations. For example, in attempting to reduce the skin-friction drag
of a body having a turbulent boundary layer by using global suction, the penalty
associated with the control device often exceeds the savings derived from its use.
What is needed is a way to reduce this penalty to achieve a more efcient control.
Flow control is most effective when applied near the transition or separation
pointsin other words, near the critical ow regimes where ow instabilities mag-
nify quickly. Therefore, delaying or advancing laminar-to-turbulence transition and
preventing or provoking separation are relatively easier tasks to accomplish. To re-
duce the skin-friction drag in a nonseparating turbulent boundary layer, where the
mean ow is quite stable, is a more challenging problem. Yet, even a modest reduc-
tion in the uid resistance to the motion of, for example, the worldwide commercial
airplane eet is translated into fuel savings estimated to be in the billions of dollars.
Newer ideas for turbulent ow control focus on the direct onslaught on coherent
structures. Spurred by the recent developments in chaos control, microfabrication,
and soft computing tools, reactive control of turbulent ows is now in the realm of
the possible for future practical devices.
The primary objective of this chapter is to advance possible scenarios by which
viable control strategies of turbulent ows can be realized. As will be argued in
the following presentation, future systems for control of turbulent ows in general
and turbulent boundary layers in particular could greatly benet from the merging
of the science of chaos control, the technology of microfabrication, and the newest
320 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
computational tools collectively termed soft computing. Control of chaotic, nonlinear
dynamical systems has been demonstrated theoretically as well as experimentally
even for multi-degree-of-freedom systems. Microfabrication is an emerging tech-
nology that has the potential for producing inexpensive, programmable sensor or
actuator chips that have dimensions of the order of a few microns (see Chapter 13).
Soft computing tools include neural networks, fuzzy logic, and genetic algorithms
and are now more advanced as well as more widely used as compared with just
few years ago. These tools could be very useful in constructing effective adaptive
controllers.
Such futuristic systems are envisaged as consisting of a large number of intelligent,
interactive, microfabricated wall sensors and actuators arranged in a checkerboard
pattern and targeted toward specic organized structures that occur quasi-randomly
within a turbulent ow. Sensors detect oncoming coherent structures, and adaptive
controllers process the sensors information and provide control signals to the actu-
ators, which in turn attempt to modulate the quasi-periodic events favorably. Finite
numbers of wall sensors perceive only partial information about the entire oweld
above. However, a low-dimensional dynamical model of the near-wall region used
in a Kalman lter can make the most of the partial information from the sensors.
Conceptually, all of that is not too difcult, but in practice the complexity of such a
control system is daunting, and much research and development work still remain.
14.1.3 Outline
In this chapter, I will review the important developments in the eld of ow con-
trol that took place during the past fewyears and suggest avenues for future research.
The emphasis will be on reactive ow control for future vehicles and other indus-
trial devices. This chapter is organized into ten sections. A particular example of
a classical control system, suction, is described in the following section. This will
serve as a prelude to introducing the selective suction concept. In Section 14.3, the
different hierarchy of coherent structures that dominate a turbulent boundary layer
and that constitute the primary target for direct onslaught are briey recalled. The
characteristic lengths and sensor requirements of turbulent ows are discussed in
Section 14.4. Reactive ow control and the selective suction concept are described
in Section 14.5. The number, size, frequency, and energy consumption of the sensor
and actuator units required to tame the turbulence on a full-scale air or water vehicle
are estimated in that same section. Section 14.6 introduces the topic of magnetohy-
drodynamics and suggests a reactive owcontrol scheme using electromagnetic body
forces. Sections 14.7, 14.8, and 14.9 consider, in turn, the emerging areas of chaos
control, microfabrication, and soft computingparticularly as they relate to reactive
control strategies. Finally, brief concluding remarks are given in Section 14.10.
14.2 Suction
To set the stage for introducing the concept of targeted or selected control in
Section 14.5, I will rst discuss in this section global control as applied to wall-
bounded ows. Aviscous uid that is initially irrotational will acquire vorticity when
an obstacle is passed through the uid. This vorticity controls the nature and struc-
ture of the boundary layer ow in the vicinity of the obstacle. For an incompressible,
wall-bounded ow, the ux of spanwise or streamwise vorticity at the wall, and hence
14.2 SUCTION 321
whether the surface is a sink or a source of vorticity, is affected by the wall motion
(e.g., in the case of a compliant coating), transpiration (suction or injection), stream-
wise or spanwise pressure gradient, wall curvature, normal viscosity gradient near
the wall (caused by, for example, heating or cooling of the wall or introduction of a
shear-thinning or shear thickening additive into the boundary layer), and body forces
such as electromagnetic ones in a conducting uid (Section 14.6). These alterations
separately or collectively control the shape of the instantaneous as well as the mean
velocity proles, which in turn determines the skin friction at the wall, the boundary
layer ability to resist transition and separation, and the intensity of turbulence and
its structure.
For illustration purposes, I will focus on global wall suction as a generic con-
trol tool. The arguments presented here and in subsequent sections are equally valid
for other global control techniques such as geometry modication (body shaping),
surface heating or cooling, electromagnetic control, and so forth. Transpiration pro-
vides a good example of a single control technique that is used to achieve a variety
of goals. Suction leads to a fuller velocity prole (vorticity ux away from the wall)
and can, therefore, be employed to delay laminar-to-turbulence transition, post-
pone separation, achieve an asymptotic turbulent boundary layer (i.e., one having
constant momentum thickness), or relaminarize an already turbulent ow. Unfortu-
nately, global suction cannot be used to reduce the skin-friction drag in a turbulent
boundary layer. The amount of suction required to inhibit boundary-layer growth is
too large to effect a net drag reduction. This is a good illustration of a situation in
which the penalty associated with a control device may exceed the savings derived
from its use.
Small amounts of uid withdrawn from the near-wall region of a boundary layer
change the curvature of the velocity prole at the wall and can dramatically alter the
stability characteristics of the ow. Concurrently, suction inhibits the growth of the
boundary layer, and thus the critical Reynolds number based on thickness may never
be reached. Although laminar ow can be maintained to extremely high Reynolds
numbers provided that enough uid is sucked away, the goal is to accomplish transi-
tion delay with the minimum suction ow rate. This will reduce not only the power
necessary to drive the suction pump but also the momentum loss due to the addi-
tional freestream uid entrained into the boundary layer as a result of withdrawing
uid from the wall. That momentum loss is, of course, manifested as an increase in
the skin-friction drag.
The case of uniformsuction froma at plate at zero incidence is an exact solution
of the NavierStokes equation. The asymptotic velocity prole in the viscous region
is exponential and has a negative curvature at the wall. The displacement thickness
has the constant value
= /|v
w
|, where is the kinematic viscosity and |v
w
| is the
absolute value of the normal velocity at the wall. In this case, the familiar von K arm an
integral equation reads: C
f
= 2C
q
. Bussmann and M unz (1942) computed the critical
Reynolds number for the asymptotic suction prole to be Re
/ = 70,000.
From the value of
>1.4 10
5
. The amplication rate of unstable disturbances for the
asymptotic prole is an order of magnitude less than that for the Blasius bound-
ary layer (Pretsch 1942). This treatment ignores the development distance from the
leading edge needed to reach the asymptotic state. When this is included into the
computation, a higher C
q
= 1.1810
4
is required to ensure stability (Iglisch 1944;
Ulrich 1944).
322 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
In a turbulent wall-bounded ow, the results of El ena (1975, 1984) and Antonia
et al. (1988) indicate that suction causes an appreciable stabilization of the low-speed
streaks in the near-wall region. The maximumturbulence level at y
+
13 drops from
15 to 12% as C
q
varies from 0 to 0.003. More dramatically, the tangential Reynolds
stress near the wall drops by a factor of 2 for the same variation of C
q
. The dissipation
length scale near the wall increases by 40%and the integral length scale by 25%with
the suction.
The suction rate necessary for establishing an asymptotic turbulent boundary
layer independent of streamwise coordinate (d
) where
the Reynolds stress is produced in a very intermittent fashion. Half of the total
production of turbulence kinetic energy (uvU/y) takes place near the wall in
the rst 5% of the boundary layer at typical laboratory Reynolds numbers (smaller
fraction at higher Reynolds numbers), and the dominant sequence of eddy motions
there is collectively termed the bursting phenomenon. This dynamically signicant
process was reviewed by Willmarth (1975a); Blackwelder (1978); Robinson (1991);
and more recently Panton (1997a). Qualitatively, the process, according to at least
one school of thought, begins with elongated, counterrotating, streamwise vortices
having diameters of approximately 40/u
_
1
4
(14.1)
=
_
_1
2
(14.2)
= ()
1
4
(14.3)
These scales are accordingly called the Kolmogorov microscales, or sometimes the
inner scales of the ow. Because they are obtained through a physical argument, these
scales are the smallest scales that can exist in a turbulent ow and they are relevant
for both free-shear and wall-bounded ows.
In boundary layers, the shear-layer thickness provides a measure of the largest
eddies in the ow. The smallest scale in wall-bounded ows is the viscous wall unit,
which will be shown below to be of the same order as the Kolmogorov length scale.
Viscous forces dominate over inertia in the near-wall region, and the characteristic
scales there are obtained from the magnitude of the mean vorticity in the region and
its viscous diffusion away from the wall. Thus, the viscous time-scale, t
, is given by
the inverse of the mean wall vorticity
t
=
_
U
y
w
_
1
(14.4)
where U is the mean streamwise velocity. The viscous length-scale,
, is determined
326 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
by the characteristic distance by which the (spanwise) vorticity is diffused from the
wall and is thus given by
U
y
w
(14.5)
where is the kinematic viscosity. The wall velocity scale (so-called friction velocity,
u
U
y
w
=
_
(14.6)
where
w
is the mean shear stress at the wall, and is the uid density. A wall
unit implies scaling with the viscous scales, and the usual ()
+
notation is used; for
example, y
+
= y/
= y u
+
u
(y
+
)
1
4
(14.7)
where is the von K arm an constant (0.41). As y
+
changes in the range of 15
(the extent of the viscous sublayer), changes from 0.8 to 1.2 wall units.
We now have access to scales for the largest and smallest eddies of a turbulent
ow. To continue our analysis of the cascade energy process, it is necessary to nd a
connection between these diverse scales. One way of obtaining such a relation is to use
the fact that at equilibrium the amount of energy dissipating at high wave numbers
must equal the amount of energy drained from the mean ow into the energetic
large-scale eddies at low wave numbers. In the inertial region of the turbulence
kinetic energy spectrum, the ow is almost independent of viscosity, and because the
same amount of energy dissipated at the high wave numbers must pass this inviscid
region, an inviscid relation for the total dissipation may be obtained by the following
argument. The amount of kinetic energy per unit mass of an eddy with a wave number
in the inertial sublayer is proportional to the square of a characteristic velocity for
such an eddy, u
2
. The rate of transfer of energy is assumed to be proportional to the
reciprocal of one eddy turnover time, u/, where is a characteristic length of the
inertial sublayer. Hence, the rate of energy that is supplied to the small-scale eddies
via this particular wave number is of order u
3
/, and this amount of energy must be
equal to the energy dissipated at the highest wavenumber, expressed as
u
3
(14.8)
Note that this is an inviscid estimate of the dissipation because it is based on large-
scale dynamics and does not either involve or contain viscosity. More comprehensive
discussion of this issue can be found in Taylor (1935) and Tennekes and Lumley
(1972). Froman experimental perspective, this is a very important expression because
it offers one way of estimating the Kolmogorov microscales fromquantities measured
in a much lower wave number range.
14.4 SCALES 327
Because the Kolmogorov length and time scales are the smallest scales occurring
in turbulent motion, a central question will be how small these scales can be without
violating the continuum hypothesis. By looking at the governing equations, it can be
concluded that high dissipation rates are usually associated with large velocities, and
this situation is more likely to occur in gases than in liquids, and thus it would be
sufcient to showthat for gas ows the smallest turbulence scales are normally much
larger than the molecular scales of motion. The relevant molecular length scale is the
mean free path, L, and the ratio between this length and the Kolmogorov length-scale,
, is the microstructure Knudsen number and can be expressed as (see Corrsin 1959):
Kn =
L
Ma
1
4
Re
(14.9)
where the turbulence Reynolds number Re and the turbulence Mach number Ma
are used as independent variables. It is obvious that a turbulent ow will interfere
with the molecular motion only at high Mach number and low Reynolds number,
and this is a very unusual situation occurring only in certain gaseous nebulae.
1
Thus, under normal condition the turbulence Knudsen number falls in the group
of continuum ows. However, measurements using extremely thin hot wires, small
MEMS sensors, or ows within narrow MEMS channels can generate values in the
slip-ow regime and even beyond, and this implies that, for instance, the no-slip
condition may be questioned, as was discussed in Section 13.2.5.
14.4.1 Sensor Requirements
It is the ultimate goal of all measurements in turbulent ows to resolve the largest
and smallest eddies that occur in the ow. At the lower wave numbers, the largest
and most energetic eddies occur, and normally there are no problems associated with
resolving these eddies. Basically, this is a question of having access to computers with
sufciently large memory for storing the amount of data that it may be necessary to
acquire from a large number of distributed probes, each collecting data for a time
period long enough to reduce the statistical error to a prescribed level. However,
at the other end of the spectrum, both the spatial and the temporal resolutions are
crucial, and this puts severe limitations on the sensors to be used. It is possible to
obtain a relation between the small and large scales of the ow by substituting the
inviscid estimate of the total dissipation rate, Eq. (14.8), into the expressions for the
Kolmogorov microscales, Eqs. (14.1)(14.3). Thus,
_
u
3
4
= Re
3
4
(14.10)
u
_
u
1
2
= Re
1
2
(14.11)
u
_
u
1
4
= Re
1
4
(14.12)
1
Note that in microduct ows and the like, the Re is usually too small for turbulence to even exist.
Thus the issue of turbulence Knudsen number is mute in those circumstances even if rarefaction effects
become strong.
328 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
where Re is the Reynolds number based on the speed of the energy containing eddies
u and their characteristic length . Because turbulence is a high-Reynolds-number
phenomenon, these relations show that the small length, time, and velocity scales
are much less than those of the larger eddies and that the separation in scales widens
considerably as the Reynolds number increases. Moreover, this also implies that the
assumptions made on the statistical independence and the dynamical equilibrium
state of the small structures will be most relevant at high Reynolds numbers. Another
interesting conclusion that can be drawn from the preceding relations is that if
two turbulent owelds have the same spatial extension (i.e., same large-scale) but
different Reynolds numbers, there would be an obvious difference in the small-scale
structure in the two ows. The low-Reynolds-number ow would have a relatively
coarse small-scale structure, whereas the high-Re ow would have much ner small
eddies.
To resolve the smallest eddies spatially, sensors that are of about the same size as
the Kolmogorov length scale for the particular ow under consideration are needed.
This implies that, as the Reynolds number increases, smaller sensors are required. For
instance, in the self-preserving region of a plane-cylinder wake at a modest Reynolds
number, on the basis of the cylinder diameter of 1840, the value of varies in the range
of 0.50.8 mm(Aronson and L ofdahl 1994). For this case, conventional hot wires can
be used for turbulence measurements. However, an increase in the Reynolds number
by a factor of 10 will yield Kolmogorov scales in the micrometer range and call
for either extremely small conventional hot wires or MEMS-based sensors. Another
example illustrating the Reynolds number effect on the requirement of small sensors
is a simple two-dimensional, at-plate boundary layer. At a momentum thickness
Reynolds number of Re
= 13 m.
Wall-speed streaks are the most visible, reliable, and detectable indicators of the
preburst turbulence production process. The detection criterion is simply lowvelocity
near the wall, and the actuator response should be to accelerate (or to remove) the
low-speed region before it breaks down. Local wall motion, tangential injection,
suction, heating or electromagnetic body force, all triggered on sensed wall-pressure
or wall-shear stress, could be used to cause local acceleration of near-wall uid.
The recent numerical experiments of Berkooz, Fisher, and Psiaki (1993) indicate
that effective control of bursting pairs of rolls may be achieved by using the equivalent
of two wall-mounted shear sensors. If the goal is to stabilize or to eliminate all
low-speed streaks in the boundary layer, a reasonable estimate for the spanwise
and streamwise distances between individual elements of a checkerboard array is,
respectively, 100 and 1000 wall units,
3
or 260 m and 2600 m, for our particular
example. A reasonable size for each element is probably one-tenth of the spanwise
separation, or 26 m. A(1 m1 m) portion of the surface would have to be covered
with about n = 1.5 million elements. This is a colossal number, but the density of
2
Note that the skin friction decreases as the distance fromthe leading increases. It is also strongly affected
by such things as the externally imposed pressure gradient. Therefore, the estimates provided here are
for illustration only.
3
These are equal to, respectively, the average spanwise wavelength between two adjacent streaks and
the average streamwise extent for a typical low-speed region. One can argue that these estimates
are too conservative: once a region is relaminarized, it would perhaps stay as such for quite a while
as the ow convects downstream. The next row of sensors and actuators may therefore be relegated to a
downstream location well beyond 1000 wall units. Relatively simple physical or numerical experiments
could settle this issue.
14.5 REACTIVE CONTROL 337
sensors and actuators could be considerably reduced if we moderated our goal of
targeting every single bursting event (and also if less conservative assumptions were
used).
It is well known that not every low-speed streak leads to a burst. On the average, a
particular sensor would detect an incipient bursting event every wall-unit interval of
P
+
=P u
2
=
10 m/s. Despite the relatively low speed, the unit Reynolds number is still the same
as estimated above for the air case, Re = 10
7
/m, owing to the much lower kinematic
viscosity of water. At 1 m from the leading edge of an imaginary at plate towed
in water at the same speed, the friction velocity is only u
C/2
B
2
z
+ B
2
y
(14.16)
F
y
= 0 vB
2
z
(14.17)
F
z
= 0 vB
z
B
y
(14.18)
where u and v are, respectively, the streamwise and normal velocity components.
Each of the rst terms on the the right-hand sides of Eqs. (14.16)(14.18) is due to
the applied electric eld. The second termis the induced Lorentz force and is negligible
for low-conductivity uids such as seawater. Therefore, for such an application and
particular arrangement of electrodes or magnets, the electromagnetic body force is
predominately in the streamwise direction, F
x
(E
y
B
z
E
z
B
y
).
340 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
We now write the continuity and streamwise momentum equations. For an in-
compressible ow and with the gravitational body force neglected
u
x
+
v
y
= 0 (14.19)
u
t
+u
u
x
+v
u
y
=
p
x
+
y
+ (E
y
B
z
E
z
B
y
) u
B
2
z
+ B
2
y
(14.20)
where is the viscous shear stress. The pressure term can be written in terms of
the velocity outside the boundary layer U
o
, which in general is a function of x and
t. Note that the total drag should be the sum of the usual viscous and form drags
plus (or minus) the Lorentz force. In Eq. (14.20) the induced Lorentz force is always
negative (for positive u). The applied force can be positive or negative, depending
on the direction of the applied electric eld E relative to the magnetic eld B. In any
case, when the Lorentz force is positive, it constitutes a thrust (negative drag).
At a given x location, the streamwise momentum equation is readily integrated
in y from the wall to the edge of the boundary layer. If we invoke the continuity
equation and use the usual denitions for the skin friction coefcient (C
f
) and the
displacement and momentum thicknesses (
and
)
t
+2
x
2
v
w
U
o
+2
2 +
1
U
o
U
o
x
+
2
U
2
o
0
[E
y
B
z
E
z
B
y
] dy
2
U
2
o
0
u
B
2
z
+ B
2
y
dy (14.21)
where v
w
is the injection (or suction) velocity normal to the wall. If is not constant,
it has to be included in the two integrals on the right-hand side of Eq. (14.21).
It is clear that the following effects contribute to an increase in the skin friction:
temporal acceleration of freestream, growth of momentum thickness, wall suction,
favorable pressure gradient, and positive streamwise Lorentz force. When a Lorentz
force points opposite to the ow direction, the skin friction decreases, and the ve-
locity prole tends to become more inectional. But once again remember to add
(or subtract) the drag (or thrust) due to the applied as well as induced Lorentz
forces.
Note that Eq. (14.21) is valid for steady or unsteady ows, for Newtonian or
non-Newtonian uids, and for laminar or turbulent ows (mean quantities are used
in the latter case). The two integrals in Eq. (14.21) can be computed once the electric
and magnetic elds are known and an approximate velocity prole is assumed. For
seawater, the last integral in Eq. (14.21) is neglected.
14.6.3 Vorticity Flux at the Wall
Another very useful equation is the differential momentumequation written at the
wall (y = 0). Here we assume a Newtonian uid but allow viscosity to vary spatially
and the ow to be three-dimensional. For a nonmoving wall, the instantaneous
14.6 MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC CONTROL 341
streamwise, normal, and spanwise momentum equations read respectively
v
w
u
y
y=0
+
p
x
y=0
y=0
u
y
y=0
[E
y
B
z
E
z
B
y
]
y=0
=
2
u
y
2
y=0
(14.22)
0 +
p
y
y=0
0 F
y
y=0
=
2
v
y
2
y=0
(14.23)
v
w
w
y
y=0
+
p
z
y=0
y=0
w
y
y=0
F
z
y=0
=
2
w
y
2
y=0
(14.24)
where F
y
|
y=0
and F
z
|
y=0
are, respectively, the wall values of the Lorentz force in
the normal and spanwise directions. In Eq. (14.22), the streamwise Lorentz force
at the wall F
x
|
y=0
is due only to the applied electric eld (the induced force is zero
at the wall because u vanishes there for nonmoving walls). The expression for F
x
in Eq. (14.22) is for an array of alternating electrodes and magnets parallel to the
streamwise direction,
6
but the streamwise Lorentz force can readily be computed for
any other conguration of magnets and electrodes. If the electric conductivity varies
spatially, the value of at the wall should be used in Eq. (14.22).
The right-hand side of Eq. (14.22) is the (negative of) wall ux of spanwise vortic-
ity, whereas that of Eq. (14.24) is the (negative of) wall ux of streamwise vorticity.
Much like transpiration, pressure gradient, or viscosity variations, the wall value of
the Lorentz force determines the sign and intensity of wall vorticity ux. Stream-
wise force contributes to spanwise vorticity ux, and spanwise force contributes to
streamwise vorticity ux. Take for example a positive streamwise Lorentz force. This
is a negative term on the left-hand side of Eq. (14.22) that makes the curvature of
the streamwise velocity prole at the wall more negative (i.e., instantaneously fuller
velocity prole). The wall is then a source of spanwise vorticity, and the ow is more
resistant to transition and separation. In a turbulent ow, a positive streamwise
Lorentz force leads to suppression of normal and tangential Reynolds stresses.
14.6.4 EMHD Tiles for Reactive Control
In this subsection, I will outline a reactive control strategy that exploits the Lorentz
forces to modulate the ow of an electrically conducting uid such as seawater. The
idea here is to target the low-speed streaks in the near-wall region of a turbulent
boundary layer. The electric eld is applied only when and where it is needed, and
hence the power consumed by the reactive control system is kept far below that con-
sumed by a predetermined active control system. According to recent numerical and
experimental results, brute force application of steady or time-dependent Lorentz
forceto reduce drag, for exampledoes not achieve the break-even point. The
reason for this is the high energy expenditure by predetermined control systems (see,
for example, the two meeting proceedings edited by Gerbeth 1997 and Meng 1998).
6
Note that for such an array, the applied part of both F
y
|
y=0
and F
z
|
y=0
is identically zero, but the induced
part is nonzero if v
w
= 0. In seawater applications, the induced Lorentz force is negligible regardless of
any suction, injection, or normal wall motion.
342 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
Figure 14.3: EMHD tiles for reactive control of turbulent boundary layers.
The top view in Figure 14.3 depicts the distribution of EMHD tiles to achieve
targeted control in a turbulent wall-bounded ow. Each tile consists of two stream-
wise strips constituting the north and south poles of a permanent magnet and another
two strips constituting positive and negative electrodes.
7
The tiles are staggered in
a checkerboard conguration and are separated by 100 wall units in the spanwise
direction (z) and 1000 wall units in the streamwise direction (x). The length and
width of each tile is about 50 wall units.
8
A shear stress sensor having a spatial resolution of 25 wall units is placed just
upstream and along the centerline of each tile. Each sensor and corresponding actu-
ator are connected via a closed-feedback control loop. The tile is activated to give
a positive or negative streamwise Lorentz force when a low- or high-speed region
is detected. The control law used can be based on simple physical arguments or a
more complex self-learning neural network. Other possible, albeit more sophisti-
cated, control laws can be based on nonlinear dynamical systems theory or optimal
or suboptimal control theory.
For a simpler physical or numerical experiment that does not require sensors and
complex closed-loop control, a single low-speed streak is articially generated in a
laminar boundary layer using two suction holes, as depicted in the (xz) view in
Figure 14.4. The two holes are separated in the spanwise direction by 100 wall units,
and each is about 0.5 wall unit in diameter. Such a method was successfully used by
Gad-el-Hak and Hussain (1986) to generate articial low-speed streaks as well as sim-
ulated bursting events in a laminar environment. In this same experiment, high-speed
regions and counterrotating streamwise vortices are also generated, and, if desired,
one can readily target any of these simulated events for elimination. The necessary
actuation would of course depend on the kind of coherent structure to be targeted.
A single EMHD tile is placed about 50 wall units directly downstream of the
suction holes and is activated with a suitable time delay after a suction pulse is
7
The cathode and anode are interchangeable, depending on the desired direction of the Lorentz force.
8
The length and width of each magnet pole (or electrode) are thus 50 and 12.5 wall units, respectively.
14.7 CHAOS CONTROL 343
Figure 14.4: Control of a single articial low-speed streak.
appliedin essence using a simple, predetermined, open-loop control. A single elec-
tric pulse
9
triggers a positive Lorentz force to eliminate the articially generated
low-speed streak. The experiment would of course be repeated several times, and the
actuator location, phase lag, strength, and duration could be optimized to achieve
the desired goal.
The streamwise Lorentz force necessary to eliminate the resulting articial low-
speed streak could be computed from the measurements, and thus the energy expen-
diture necessary to eliminate all the low-speed streaks in a real turbulent boundary
layer could readily be estimated.
14.7 Chaos Control
14.7.1 Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Theory
In the theory of dynamical systems, the so-called buttery effect denotes sensitive
dependence of nonlinear differential equations on initial conditions with phasespace
solutions initially very close together separating exponentially. The solution of non-
linear dynamical systems of three or more degrees of freedom may be in the form of
a strange attractor whose intrinsic structure contains a well-dened mechanism to
produce a chaotic behavior without requiring random forcing. Chaotic behavior is
complex, aperiodic and, though deterministic, appears to be random.
A question arises naturally. Just as small disturbances can radically grow within
a deterministic system to yield rich, unpredictable behavior, can minute adjustments
to a system parameter be used to reverse the process and control (i.e., regularize)
the behavior of a chaotic system? Recently, that question was answered in the afr-
mative theoretically as well as experimentallyat least for system orbits that reside
on low-dimensional strange attractors (see the review by Lindner and Ditto 1995).
Before describing such strategies for controlling chaotic systems, we rst summarize
the recent attempts to construct a low-dimensional dynamical systems representa-
tion of turbulent boundary layers. Such construction is a necessary rst step to be
able to use chaos-control strategies for turbulent ows. Additionally, as argued by
9
Note that in this simulated environment the electric pulse would have the same polarity if only low-speed
streaks were to be obliterated.
344 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
Lumley (1996b), a low-dimensional dynamical model of the near-wall region used
in a Kalman lter (Banks 1986; Petersen and Savkin 1999) can make the most of
the partial information assembled from a nite number of wall sensors. Such a lter
minimizes in a least-squares sense the errors caused by incomplete information and
thus globally optimizes the performance of the control system.
Boundary layer turbulence is described by a set of nonlinear partial differential
equations and is characterized by an innite number of degrees of freedom. This
makes it rather difcult to model the turbulence using a dynamical systems approx-
imation. The notion that a complex, innite-dimensional ow can be decomposed
into several low-dimensional subunits is, however, a natural consequence of the real-
ization that quasi-periodic coherent structures dominate the dynamics of seemingly
randomturbulent shear ows. This implies that low-dimensional, localized dynamics
can exist in formally innite-dimensional extended systems such as open turbulent
ows. Reducing the ow physics to nite-dimensional dynamical systems enables a
study of its behavior through an examination of the xed points and the topology of
their stable and unstable manifolds. From the dynamical systems theory viewpoint,
the meandering of low-speed streaks is interpreted as hovering of the ow state near
an unstable xed point in the low-dimensional state space. An intermittent event
that produces high wall stressa burstis interpreted as a jump along a heteroclinic
cycle to a different unstable xed point that occurs when the state has wandered
too far from the rst unstable xed point. Delaying this jump by holding the system
near the rst xed point should lead to lower momentum transport in the wall re-
gion and, therefore, to lower skin-friction drag. Reactive control means sensing the
current local state and through appropriate manipulation keeping the state close to
a given unstable xed point, thereby preventing further production of turbulence.
Reducing the bursting frequency by say 50% may lead to a comparable reduction
in skin-friction drag. For a jet, relaminarization may lead to a quiet ow and very
signicant noise reduction.
In one signicant attempt the proper orthogonal, or KarhunenLo` eve, decom-
position method has been used to extract a low-dimensional dynamical system
from experimental data of the wall region (Aubry et al. 1988; Aubry 1990). Aubry
et al. (1988) expanded the instantaneous velocity eld of a turbulent boundary layer
using experimentally determined eigenfunctions which are in the form of stream-
wise rolls. They expanded the NavierStokes equations using these optimally cho-
sen, divergence-free, orthogonal functions applied a Galerkin projection and then
truncated the innite-dimensional representation to obtain a 10-dimensional set of
ordinary differential equations. These equations represent the dynamical behavior of
the rolls and are shown to exhibit a chaotic regime as well as an intermittency due to
a burst-like phenomenon. However, Aubry et al.s (1988) 10-mode dynamical system
displays a regular intermittency in contrast both to that in actual turbulence as well as
to the chaotic intermittency encountered by Pomeau and Manneville (1980) in which
event durations are distributed stochastically. Nevertheless, the major conclusion of
Aubry et al.s (1988) study is that the bursts appear to be produced autonomously
by the wall region even without turbulence but are triggered by turbulent pressure
signals from the outer layer. More recently, Berkooz et al. (1991) generalized the
class of wall-layer models developed by Aubry et al. (1988) to permit uncoupled
evolution of streamwise and cross-stream disturbances. Berkooz et al.s results sug-
gest that the intermittent events observed in Aubry et al.s representation do not arise
14.7 CHAOS CONTROL 345
solely because of the effective closure assumption incorporated but are rather rooted
deeper in the dynamical phenomena of the wall region. The book by Holmes et al.
(1996) details the Cornell research groups attempts at describing turbulence as a
low-dimensional dynamical system.
In addition to the reductionist viewpoint exemplied by the work of Aubry et al.
(1988) and Berkooz et al. (1991), attempts have been made to determine directly the
dimension of the attractors underlying specic turbulent ows. Again, the central
issue here is whether or not turbulent solutions to the innite-dimensional Navier
Stokes equations can be asymptotically described by a nite number of degrees of
freedom. Grappin and L eorat (1991) computed the Lyapunov exponents and the
attractor dimensions of two- and three-dimensional periodic turbulent ows without
shear. They found that the number of degrees of freedom contained in the large
scales establishes an upper bound for the dimension of the attractor. Deane and
Sirovich (1991) and Sirovich and Deane (1991) numerically determined the number
of dimensions needed to specify chaotic RayleighB enard convection over a moderate
range of Rayleigh numbers, Ra. They suggested that the intrinsic attractor dimension
is O[Ra
2/3
].
The corresponding dimension in wall-bounded ows appears to be dauntingly
high. Keefe, Moin, and Kim (1992) determined the dimension of the attractor un-
derlying turbulent Poiseuille ows with spatially periodic boundary conditions. Us-
ing a coarse-grained numerical simulation, they computed a lower bound on the
Lyapunov dimension of the attractor to be approximately 352 at a pressure-gradient
Reynolds number of 3200. Keefe et al. (1992) argued that the attractor dimension in
fully-resolved turbulence is unlikely to be much larger than 780. This suggests that
periodic turbulent shear ows are deterministic chaos and that a strange attractor
does underlie solutions to the NavierStokes equations. Temporal unpredictability
in the turbulent Poiseuille ow is thus due to the exponential spreading property of
such attractors. Although nite, the computed dimension invalidates the notion that
the global turbulence can be attributed to the interaction of a fewdegrees of freedom.
Moreover, in a physical channel or boundary layer, the ow is not periodic and is
open. The attractor dimension in such a case is not known but is believed to be even
higher than the estimate provided by Keefe et al. for the periodic (quasi-closed) ow.
In contrast to closed, absolutely unstable ows such as TaylorCouette systems in
which the number of degrees of freedom can be small, local measurements in open,
convectively unstable ows, such as boundary layers, do not express the global dy-
namics, and the attractor dimension in that case may inevitably be too large to be
determined experimentally. According to the estimate provided by Keefe et al. (1992),
the colossal data required (about 10
D
, where Dis the attractor dimension) for mea-
suring the dimension simply exceed current computer capabilities. Turbulence near
transition or near a wall is an exception to that bleak picture. In those special cases,
a relatively small number of modes are excited, and the resulting simple turbulence
can therefore be described by a dynamical system of a reasonable number of degrees
of freedom.
14.7.2 Chaos Control
There is another question of greater relevance here. Given a dynamical system
in the chaotic regime, is it possible to stabilize its behavior through some kind of
active control? Although other alternatives have been devised (e.g., Fowler 1989;
346 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
H ubler and L uscher 1989; Huberman 1990; Huberman and Lumer 1990), the recent
method proposed by workers at the University of Maryland (Ott, Grebogi, and Yorke
1990a,b; Shinbrot et al. 1990, 1992a,b, 1998; Shinbrot, Ditto, Grebogi, Ott, Spano,
and Yorke 1992; Romeiras et al. 1992) promises to be a signicant breakthrough.
Comprehensive reviews and bibliographies of the emerging eld of chaos control can
be found in the articles by Shinbrot et al. (1993); Shinbrot (1993, 1995, 1998); and
Lindner and Ditto (1995).
Ott et al. (1990a) demonstrated, through numerical experiments with the Henon
map, that it is possible to stabilize a chaotic motion about any prechosen unstable
orbit through the use of relatively small perturbations. The procedure consists of
applying minute time-dependent perturbations to one of the system parameters to
control the chaotic system around one of its many unstable periodic orbits. In this
context, targeting refers to the process whereby an arbitrary initial condition on
a chaotic attractor is steered toward a prescribed point (target) on this attractor.
The goal is to reach the target as quickly as possible using a sequence of small
perturbations (Kostelich et al. 1993a).
The success of the OttGrebogiYorke (OGY) strategy for controlling chaos
hinges on the fact that beneath the apparent unpredictability of a chaotic system
lies an intricate but highly ordered structure. Left to its own recourse, such a system
continually shifts from one periodic pattern to another, creating the appearance of
randomness. An appropriately controlled system, on the other hand, is locked into
one particular type of repeating motion. With such reactive control the dynamical
system becomes one with a stable behavior. The OGY method can be simply illus-
trated by the schematic in Figure 14.5. The state of the system is represented as
the intersection of a stable manifold and an unstable one. The control is applied
intermittently whenever the system departs from the stable manifold by a prescribed
tolerance; otherwise, the control is shut off. The control attempts to put the sys-
tem back onto the stable manifold so that the state converges toward the desired
trajectory. Unmodeled dynamics cause noise in the system and a tendency for the
state to wander off in the unstable direction. The intermittent control prevents that,
and the desired trajectory is achieved. This efcient control is not unlike trying to
balance a ball in the center of a horse saddle (Moin and Bewley 1994). There is one
Figure 14.5: The OGY method for controlling
chaos.
stable direction (front or back) and one
unstable direction (left or right). The
restless horse is the unmodeled dynamics
intermittently causing the ball to move in
the wrong direction. The OGY control
needs only to be applied, in the most di-
rect manner possible, whenever the ball
wanders off in the left or right direction.
The OGY method has been success-
fully applied in a relatively simple ex-
periment by Ditto, Rauseo, and Spano
(1990) and Ditto and Pecora (1993) at
the Naval Surface Warfare Center in
which reverse chaos was obtained in
a parametrically driven, gravitationally
buckled, amorphous magnetoelastic rib-
bon. Garnkel et al. (1992) applied the
14.7 CHAOS CONTROL 347
same control strategy to stabilize drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias in sections of
a rabbit ventricle. Other extensions, improvements, and applications of the OGY
strategy include higher-dimensional targeting (Auerbach et al. 1992; Kostelich et al.
1993b); controlling chaotic scattering in Hamiltonian (i.e., nondissipative, area
conservative) systems (Lai, Deng, and Grebogi 1993; Lai, T el, and Grebogi 1993);
synchronizing identical chaotic systems that govern communication, neural, or bio-
logical processes (Lai and Grebogi 1993); using chaos to transmit information
(Hayes, Grebogi, and Ott 1994; Hayes, Grebogi, Ott, and Mark 1994); controlling
transient chaos (Lai et al. 1994); and taming spatiotemporal chaos using a sparse
array of controllers (Chen, Wolf, and Chang 1993; Qin, Wolf, and Chang 1994;
Auerbach 1994).
In a more complex system, such as a turbulent boundary layer, there exist numer-
ous interdependent modes and many stable as well as unstable manifolds (directions).
The ow can then be modeled as coherent structures plus a parameterized turbulent
background. The proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is used to model the co-
herent part because POD guarantees the minimum number of degrees of freedom
for a given model accuracy. Factors that make turbulence control a challenging task
are the potentially quite large perturbations caused by the unmodeled dynamics of
the ow, the nonstationary nature of the desired dynamics, and the complexity of
the saddle shape describing the dynamics of the different modes. Nevertheless, the
OGY-control strategy has several advantages that are of special interest in the con-
trol of turbulence: (1) the mathematical model for the dynamical system need not be
known, (2) only small changes in the control parameter are required, and (3) noise
can be tolerated (with appropriate penalty).
Recently, Keefe (1993a,b) made a useful comparison between two nonlinear con-
trol strategies as applied to uid problems: OttGrebogiYorkes feedback method
described above and the model-based control strategy originated by H ubler (see, for
example, H ubler and L uscher 1989; L uscher and H ubler 1989), the H-method. Both
novel control methods are essentially generalizations of the classical perturbation
cancellation technique: apply a prescribed forcing to subtract the undesired dynam-
ics and impose the desired one. The OGY strategy exploits the sensitivity of chaotic
systems to stabilize existing periodic orbits and steady states. Some feedback is needed
to steer the trajectories toward the chosen xed point, but the required control signal
is minuscule. In contrast, H ublers scheme does not explicitly make use of the system
sensitivity. It produces general control response (periodic or aperiodic) and needs
little or no feedback, but its control inputs are generally large. The OGY strategy
exploits the nonlinearity of a dynamical system; indeed, the presence of a strange
attractor and the extreme sensitivity of the dynamical system to initial conditions are
essential to the success of the method. In contrast, the H-method works equally for
both linear and nonlinear systems.
Keefe (1993a) rst numerically examined the two schemes as applied to fully de-
veloped and transitional solutions of the GinzburgLandau equation, an evolution
equation that governs the initially weakly nonlinear stages of transition in several
ows and that possesses both transitional and fully chaotic solutions. The Ginzburg
Landau equation has solutions that display either absolute or convective instabilities
and is thus a reasonable model for both closed and open ows. Keefes main conclu-
sion is that control of nonlinear systems is best obtained by making the maximumuse
possible of the underlying natural dynamics. If the goal dynamics is an unstable non-
linear solution of the equation and the owis nearby at the instant control is applied,
348 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
both methods perform reliably and at low-energy cost in reaching and maintaining
this goal. Predictably, the performance of both control strategies degrades owing
to noise and the spatially discrete nature of realistic forcing. Subsequently, Keefe
(1993b) extended the numerical experiment in an attempt to reduce the drag in a
channel ow with spatially periodic boundary conditions. The OGY method reduces
the skin friction to 6080% of the uncontrolled value at a mass-ux Reynolds num-
ber of 4408. The H-method fails to achieve any drag reduction when starting from
a fully turbulent initial condition but shows potential for suppressing or retarding
laminar-to-turbulence transition. Keefe (1993a) suggested that the H-strategy might
be more appropriate for boundary layer control, whereas the OGY-method might
best be used for channel ows.
It is also relevant to note here the work of Bau and his colleagues at the University
of Pennsylvania (Singer, Wang, and Bau 1991; Wang, Singer, and Bau 1992) who
devised a feedback control to stabilize (relaminarize) the naturally occurring chaotic
oscillations of a toroidal thermal convection loop heated frombelowand cooled from
above. On the basis of a simple mathematical model for the thermosyphon, Bau and
his colleagues constructed a reactive control system that was used to alter the ow
characteristics inside the convection loop signicantly. Their linear control strategy,
perhaps a special version of the OGYchaos control method, consists simply of sensing
the deviation of uid temperatures fromdesired values at a number of locations inside
the thermosyphon loop and then altering the wall heating either to suppress or to
enhance such deviations. Wang et al. (1992) also suggested extending their theoretical
and experimental method to more complex situations such as those involving B enard
convection (Tang and Bau 1993a,b). Hu and Bau (1994) used a similar feedback
control strategy to demonstrate that the critical Reynolds number for the loss of
stability of planar Poiseuille ow can be signicantly increased or decreased.
Other attempts to use low-dimensional dynamical systems representation for ow
control include the work of Berkooz et al. (1993); Corke, Glauser, and Berkooz
(1994); and Coller, Holmes, and Lumley (1994a,b). Berkooz et al. (1993) applied
techniques of modern control theory to estimate the phase-space location of dynam-
ical models of the wall-layer coherent structures and used these estimates to control
the model dynamics. Because discrete wall sensors provide incomplete knowledge
of phase-space location, Berkooz et al. maintained that a nonlinear observer, which
incorporates past information and the equations of motion into the estimation proce-
dure, is required. Using an extended Kalman lter, they achieved effective control of
a bursting pair of rolls with the equivalent of two wall-mounted shear sensors. Corke
et al. (1994) used a low-dimensional dynamical system based on the proper orthogo-
nal decomposition to guide control experiments for an axisymmetric jet. By sensing
the downstream velocity and actuating an array of miniature speakers located at the
lip of the jet, their feedback control succeeded in converting the near-eld instabili-
ties from spatial-convective to temporal-global. Coller et al. (1994a,b) developed a
feedback control strategy for strongly nonlinear dynamical systems, such as turbulent
ows, subject to small randomperturbations that kick the systemintermittently from
one saddle point to another along heteroclinic cycles. In essence, their approach is to
use local, weakly nonlinear feedback control to keep a solution near a saddle point as
long as possible but then to let the natural, global nonlinear dynamics run their course
when bursting (in a low-dimensional model) does occur. Though conceptually related
to the OGY strategy, Coller et al.s method does not actually stabilize the state but
merely holds the system near the desired point longer than it would otherwise stay.
14.8 MICROFABRICATION 349
Shinbrot and Ottino (1993a,b) offered yet another strategy presumably most
suited to controlling coherent structures in area-preserving turbulent ows. Their
geometric method exploits the premise that the dynamical mechanisms that produce
the organized structures can be remarkably simple. By repeated stretching and fold-
ing of horseshoes that are present in chaotic systems, Shinbrot and Ottino have
demonstrated numerically as well as experimentally the ability to create, destroy, and
manipulate coherent structures in chaotic uid systems. The key idea to create such
structures is to place folds of horseshoes near low-order periodic points intentionally.
In a dissipative dynamical system, volumes contract in state space, and the colocation
of a fold with a periodic point leads to an isolated region that contracts asymptoti-
cally to a point. Provided that the folding is done properly, it counteracts stretching.
Shinbrot and Ottino (1993a) applied the technique to three prototypical problems:
a one-dimensional chaotic map, a two-dimensional one, and a chaotically advected
uid. Shinbrot (1995, 1998) and Shinbrot et al. (1998) provided recent reviews of
the stretching and folding as well as other chaos control strategies.
14.8 Microfabrication
This topic was covered in more detail in the previous chapter. Manufacturing pro-
cesses that can create extremely small machines have been developed in recent years
(Angell et al. 1983; Gabriel et al. 1988, 1992; OConnor 1992; Gravesen et al.
1993; Bryzek et al. 1994; Gabriel 1995; Hogan 1996; Ho and Tai 1996, 1998;
Tien 1997; Busch-Vishniac 1998; Amato 1998). In this emerging microfabrication
technology, under intensive development only since 1990, electronic and mechanical
components are combined on a single silicon chip using photolithographic micro-
machining techniques. Motors, electrostatic actuators, pneumatic actuators, valves,
gears, and tweezers of typical size O[10 m] have been fabricated. These have been
used as sensors for pressure, temperature, velocity, mass ow, or sound, and as ac-
tuators for linear and angular motions. Current usage for microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) includes accelerometers for airbags and guidance systems, pressure
sensors for engine air intake and blood analysis, rate gyroscopes for antilock brakes,
microrelays and microswitches for semiconductor automatic test equipment, and
microgrippers for surgical procedures (OConnor 1992; Hogan 1996; Paula 1996;
Ouellette 1996; Ashley 1996; Robinson, Helvajian, and Jansen 1996a,b). There is
considerable work under way to include other applications, one example being the
microsteam engine described by Lipkin (1993). A second example is the 3 cm
1.5 cm digital light processor that contains 0.52 million individually addressable
micromirrors, each measuring 16 mm. Texas Instruments, Inc., is currently
producing such a device with a resolution of 2000 1000 pixels, for high-denition
televisions and other display equipments. The company maintains that when mass
produced, such device costs on the order of $100 (i.e., less than $0.0001 per
actuator).
The new Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems and Journal of Microme-
chanics and Microengineering are dedicated to this technology, and the older Sensors
and Actuators is increasingly allotting more of its pages to MEMS. Entire sessions in
scientic meetings have been increasingly assigned to MEMS applications in uid
mechanics (see, for example, the presentations by McMichael, Tai, Mehregany,
Mastrangelo, and Yun, all made at the AIAA Third Shear Flow Control Conference,
350 FRONTIERS OF FLOW CONTROL
Orlando, Florida, 69 July 1993, and the volumes edited by Bandyopadhyay, Breuer,
and Blechinger 1994 and Breuer, Bandyopadhyay, and Gad-el-Hak 1996). Recent
reviews of the use, or potential use, of MEMS in ow control include those by
Gad-el-Hak (1994, 1996b); Lumley (1996); McMichael (1996); Mehregany et al.
(1996); and Ho and Tai (1996, 1998).
Microelectromechanical systems would be ideal for the reactive ow-control con-
cept advocated in this chapter. Methods of ow control targeted toward specic
coherent structures involve nonintrusive detection and subsequent modulation of
events that occur randomly in space and time. To achieve proper targeted control
of these quasi-periodic vortical events, temporal phasing as well as spatial selectiv-
ity are required. Practical implementation of such an idea necessitates the use of a
large number of intelligent, communicative wall sensors and actuators arranged in
a checkerboard pattern. Section 14.5 provides estimates for the number, character-
istics, and energy consumption of such elements required to modulate the turbulent
boundary layer that develops along a typical commercial aircraft or nuclear sub-
marine. An upper-bound number to achieve total turbulence suppression is about
one million sensors or actuators per square meter of the surface, although as argued
earlier the actual number needed to achieve effective control could perhaps be 12
orders of magnitude below that.
The sensors would be expected to measure the amplitude, location, and phase
or frequency of the signals impressed upon the wall by incipient bursting events.
Instantaneous wall-pressure or wall-shear stress can be sensed, for example. The
normal or in-plane motion of a minute membrane is proportional to the respective
point force of primary interest. For measuring wall pressure, microphone-like devices
respond to the motion of a vibrating surface membrane or an internal elastomer.
Several types are available, including variable capacitance (condenser or electret),
ultrasonic, optical (e.g., optical-ber and diode-laser), and piezoelectric devices (see,
for example, L ofdahl et al. 1993, 1994; L ofdahl and Gad-el-Hak 1999). Apotentially
useful technique for our purposes has been tried at MIT (Warkentin et al. 1987;
Young et al. 1988; Haritonidis et al. 1990a,b). An array of extremely small (0.2
mm in diameter) laser-powered microphones (termed picophones) was machined in
silicon using integrated-circuit fabrication techniques and used for eld measurement
of the instantaneous surface pressure in a turbulent boundary layer. The wall-shear
stress, though smaller and therefore more difcult to measure than pressure, provides
a more reliable signature of the near-wall events.
Actuators are expected to produce a desired change in the targeted coherent
structures. The local acceleration action needed to stabilize an incipient bursting
event can be in the form of adaptive wall, transpiration, wall-heat transfer, or elec-
tromagnetic body force. Traveling surface waves can be used to modify a locally
convecting pressure gradient such that the wall motion follows that of the coherent
event causing the pressure change. Surface motion in the formof a Gaussian hill with
height y
+
= O[10] should be sufcient to suppress typical incipient bursts (Lumley
1991b; Carlson and Lumley 1996). Such time-dependent alteration in wall geome-
try can be generated by driving a exible skin using an array of piezoelectric devices
(which dilate or contract depending on the polarity of current passing through them),
electromagnetic actuators, magnetoelastic ribbons (made of nonlinear materials that
change their stiffness in the presence of varying magnetic elds), or Terfenol-d rods
(a novel metal composite developed at Grumman Corporation that changes its length
14.8 MICROFABRICATION 351
when subjected to a magnetic eld). Other exotic materials that can be used for ac-
tuation should also be noted. For example, electrorheological uids (Halsey and
Martin 1993) instantly solidify when exposed to an electric eld and may thus be
useful for the present application. Recently constructed microactuators specically
designed for ow control include those by Wiltse and Glezer (1993); James et al.
(1994); Jacobson and Reynolds (1995); Vargo and Muntz (1996); and Keefe (1996).
Suction or injection at many discrete points can be achieved simply by connecting
a large number of minute streamwise slots arranged in a checkerboard pattern to
a low-pressure or high-pressure reservoir located underneath the working surface.
The transpiration through each individual slot is turned on and off using a corre-
sponding number of independently controlled microvalves. Alternatively, positive-
displacement or rotary micropumps (see, for example, Sen et al. 1996; Sharatchandra
et al. 1997) can be used for blowing or sucking uid through small holes or slits. On
the basis of the results of Gad-el-Hak and Blackwelder (1989), equivalent suction
coefcients of about 0.0006 should be sufcient to stabilize the near-wall region. If
it is assumed that the skin-friction coefcient in the uncontrolled boundary layer is
C
f
= 0.003 and further assumed that the suction used is sufcient to establish an
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Index
acoustic efciency, 258
acoustic excitations, 181
active control, 28, 334
active momentum addition, 178
Alaskan pipeline, 217, 360
antisound, 267
base drag, 209
blind men and the elephant, 34, 42
Boltzmann equation, 293
boundary conditions, 282
higher-order slip, 286
higher-order temperature-jump, 286
bubble ramp, 203
bursting process, 51, 323
bursts, 52, 323
period between, 91
buzz instabilities, 268
chaos control, 343, 345
OGY strategy, 345
chaotic advection, 244, 246
chaotic mixing, 244, 246
egg-carton, 248
heat transfer, 247
mass transfer, 247
Chapman-Enskog expansion, 295
closed, feedback control loop, 29, 334
Coanda effect, 178
coherent structures, 39, 260, 322
denition of, 42
Falco eddies, 46, 49, 323
free-shear ows, 43
history of, 39
large eddies, 7, 46
low-speed streaks, 51, 323
memory effects, 99
near-wall eddies, 46, 323
photographs of, 3651
wall-bounded ows, 44, 46, 90, 323
coiled tubes, 230, 241, 242
chaotic, 247
chemical reaction, 247
mass transfer, 247
more twists, 242
combustion instabilities, 268
commercial submarine, 6, 361
compliant coatings
dispersion curves, 126
dolphins secret, 140
free-surface waves, 125
funding for, 147
future of, 146
instabilities of, 127
linear stability theory, 131
model for, 131
noise suppression, 263
optimization of, 133
practical examples, 139
prior to 1985, 122
turbulent ows over, 141
compressibility, 17, 280
compressible ow equations, 15
computational uid dynamics, 186
continuity equation, 11
continuum approximation, 11, 277
control goals, 25
interrelation between, 26, 196, 259
tradeoffs, 26, 259
control of turbulence, 319
Crabtree criterion, 195
crossow instabilities, 107
crossow vortices, 174, 237
da Vinci, Leonardo, 36
Dean number, 242
delta wings, 183
dipole, 255
direct simulation Monte Carlo, 296
DNA computers, 8
dolphins secret, 140
drag, 207
induced drag, 210
pressure, 207
417
418 INDEX
drag (cont.)
reduction of, 209
skin-friction, 207, 211
wave drag, 210
drag reduction, 209
counterrotating vortices, 223
bers, 217
geometrical modication, 218
LEBU, 218
mechanisms of, 216
polymers, 217
riblets, 218
rough surface, 222
spanwise oscillations, 223
surfactants, 217
synergism, 225
wall jets, 223
wavy walls, 221
dynamical systems theory, 343
Eckert number, 16
energy equation, 13
equations of motion, 11
turbulent ows, 22, 162
eras of ow control, 3
Euler equations, 16
Falco eddies, 46, 49, 323
bers, 217
eld versus laboratory Re, 61
FISI, 128
aps, 182
ow control
classication schemes, 27
denition of, 2
ve eras of, 3
funding for, 4, 6, 357, 360
future of, 4, 6, 357, 360
high Re, 101, 329
suction, 320
trade-offs, 26
turbulent ows, 319
ow visualization
rst picture, 37
gallery of, 3651
ow-induced surface instabilities, 128
uid-structure instabilities, 127
classes of, 127
forces and moments
on body in relative motion, 206
free-shear ows, 30
inectional velocity proles, 104
turbulence enhancement, 239
free-surface waves, 125
funding for research, 4, 6, 147, 357, 360
future of ow control, 4, 6, 357, 360
fuzzy logic, 352, 354
genetic algorithms, 352, 354
Grashof number, 16
Grays paradox, 140
heat transfer enhancement, 240, 241
history of the universe, 5
incompressible ow equations, 16
inectional velocity proles, 104
injection, 213
inner-outer interaction, 54
instability
absolute, 33
convective, 33
Iraq-Turkey pipeline, 217, 360
jet noise, 264
screech tones, 265
shock-associated noise, 265
shock-cell pattern, 265
subsonic ows, 265
supersonic ows, 265
KarhunenLo` eve decomposition, 344
K arm an integral equation, 23
Knudsen number, 275
regimes of, 276
Kolmogorov scales, 7, 308, 325327
Kramer, 121, 122, 129, 130, 140
MHD, 340
laminar ow control, 111
laminar separation, 165, 190, 192
large eddies, 7, 39, 43, 46, 49, 53, 54
LEBU, 218
LennardJones potential, 299
LFC, 111
Liebeck airfoil, 164
lift-to-drag ratio, 164, 189
Lighthills tensor, 257
linear stability theory, 108
applied to uid-structure system, 131
Liouville equation, 292
liquid ows
LennardJones potential, 299
MEMS, 296
molecular dynamics simulations, 299
non-Newtonian, 298
slip ow, 299
local shear layer
unsteady separation, 159
log-law
alternatives to, 78
infallibility of, 59
rise and fall of, 76
Lorentz force, 339
low Re airfoils, 191
INDEX 419
low-speed streaks, 51, 323
Lyapunov exponent, 245
Mach number, 18, 32, 275
regimes of, 32
magnetohydrodynamics control, 338
Magnus effect, 169
mass transfer enhancement, 247
mechanisms of drag reduction, 216
MEMS, 271, 349
boundary conditions, 282
compressibility, 280
continuum model, 273, 277
direct simulation Monte Carlo, 296
ow physics, 272
intermolecular forces, 306
liquid ows, 296
manufacturing of, 271
molecular dynamics simulations, 289
molecular-based models, 289
slip effects, 282284
statistical mechanics, 290
stiction, 304
surface phenomena, 303
surface-to-volume ratio, 272, 303
temperature-jump, 284
thermal creep, 284
turbulence measurements, 308
MHD, 338
K arm an integral equation, 340
momentum equation at wall, 340
reactive control, 341
microactuators, 349
microbearings, 313
microbubbles, 214, 217
microelectromechanical systems, 271, 349
manufacturing of, 271
microfabrication, 349
micropumps, 310
microsensors, 308, 327, 349
microturbines, 312
mixing, 230
as a dynamical system, 234, 244
enhancement, 230, 235
kinematics, 233
mechanisms, 231
molecular transport, 231
range of Reynolds numbers, 230
transition advancement, 235237
turbulence, 235237
turbulence enhancement, 238
mixing enhancement, 230, 235
using chaos, 244, 246
molecular computing, 8, 9, 360
molecular dynamics simulations, 289
molecular electronics, 8, 9, 360
molecular-based models, 289
moletronics, 8, 9, 360
momentum equation, 12
written at the wall, 20, 161, 340
momentum equation at wall
MHD, 340
momentum-defect law, 68
monopole, 255
MooreRottSears criterion, 151, 154, 155, 157,
158, 161, 170
moving walls, 168, 221
moving-wall separation, 154, 168
natural laminar ow, 111, 198
utility of, 202
neural networks, 352, 355
NLF, 111, 198
noise, 251
coherent structures, 260
exible surface, 258
jets, 264
presence of rigid wall, 258
subsonic ow, 258
supersonic ow, 258
suppression, 259
turbomachinery blades, 266
noise pollution, 251
noise suppression, 259
active, 267
antisound, 267
compliant coatings, 263
jets, 264
method classication, 259
passive devices, 261
reactive, 267
sonars, 260
trade-offs, 259
turbomachinery blades, 266
Nusselt number, 232
open control loop, 29, 334
open, feedforward control loop, 29, 334
particles, 217
passive contaminant, 233
passive control, 28, 334
passive scalar, 233
passive suction, 166
passively transported tracer, 233
P eclet number, 16, 232
polymers, 214, 217
Prandtl
father of ow control, 2, 3
separation criterion, 163
Prandtl number, 18, 232, 233, 281, 285
Prandtl, Ludwig, 2, 3, 39, 59, 67, 113, 153, 154,
165, 166, 169
predetermined control, 28, 334
420 INDEX
pressure drag, 207
displacement effects, 207
due to separation, 207
induced drag, 207
wave drag, 207
proper orthogonal decomposition, 344
turbulence, 236
quadrupole, 256
reactive control, 28, 329, 334
adaptive, 30, 334, 355
dynamical systems-based, 30, 334, 335
EMHD, 341
MHD, 338
neural networks, 355
optimal, 30, 334, 335
physical-model-based, 30, 334
required sensors and actuators, 336
relaminarization, 223
acceleration, 224
dissipation, 224
favorable p-gradient, 225
heating or cooling, 225
suction, 225
work done against external force, 224
Reynolds number, 16, 31, 62, 232, 275
ying, range of, 189
low range of, 190
range for mixing problems, 230
regimes of, 31
turbulence, 235
Reynolds number effects, 80, 81, 102
coherent structures, 93
ow control, 98
Reynolds stress, 85
peak location, 87
Reynolds, Osborne, 38
Reynolds-averaged equations, 22
riblets, 218
scales of turbulence, 324
screech tones, 265
selective suction, 331
sensors
requirements for turbulent ows, 327
separation
control of, 151, 197
criterion for, 163
MooreRottSears criterion, 170
moving-wall, 154
phenomenon of, 150
provocation, 183
steady, 153
three-dimensional, 154, 172
turbulent boundary layer, 158
unsteady, 154, 170
vortex-induced, 158
separation bubble, 165, 190192
breakdown of, 194
bursting of, 194
conditions for formation, 192
Crabtree criterion, 195
short, 193
TaniOwenKlanfer criterion, 195
separation control, 151, 197
acoustic excitations, 181
active, 178
blowing, 178
aps, 182
future of, 188
injection, 178
moving-walls, 168
passive suction, 166
periodic forcing, 182
shaping, 163, 197, 198
suction, 165
transpiration, 165
tripping, 178
turbulators, 173
velocity prole modiers, 163
vortex generators, 176
wall heating/cooling, 168
wall jets, 179
separation criterion, 163
separation in turbulent ow, 158
separation provocation, 183
shaping, 114, 163
Sherwood number, 232
shock-associated noise, 265
shock-cell pattern, 265
skin-friction
injection, 213
injection of foreign substance, 214
reduction of, 211, 212
reduction of near-wall momentum,
212
turbulent ows, 212
skin-friction reduction
mechanisms of, 216
skycar, 6, 361
slip-ow, 282284
softcomputing, 352
sonars, 260
signal-to-noise ratio, 260
sound
dipole, 255
equation of propagation, 254
levels of, 251
Lighthills tensor, 257
monopole, 255
pseudosound, 255
quadrupole, 256
INDEX 421
sources of, 251, 254
speed of, 253
spaceplane, 6, 361
stability modiers, 110
shaping, 114
suction, 112
wall heating or cooling, 116
wall motion, 111
steady separation, 153
stiction, 304
Stone Age, 3, 360
Stradford closure, 164
Stratford closure, 213
streamlined spears, 3, 360
suction, 112, 165, 320
surfactants, 214, 217
swept-back wings, 360
synergism, 225
Taming of the Shrew, 318, 319, 357
TaniOwenKlanfer criterion, 195
targeted control, 329, 330
TaylorG ortler vortices, 107, 174, 237
thermal creep, 284
three-dimensional separation, 154,
172
TollmienSchlichting instabilities, 128
tracer, 233
trade-offs, 26, 252, 259, 260
transition, 105
advancement, 235237
critical Reynolds number, 109
delay, 104, 110
linear stability theory, 108
routes to, 105
stability modiers, 110
wave cancellation, 118
transition advancement
free-shear ows, 237
wall-bounded ows, 236
transition delay, 104, 110
transpiration, 165
TSI, 128
turbomachinery blades, 266
turbulators, 173, 202
turbulence
as a dynamical system, 40, 343
computer requirement, 7, 21
degrees of freedom, 345
equations of motion, 22
scales of, 324
statistical view of, 39
taming of the shrew, 318, 357
the last conundrum, 40
turbulence enhancement, 238, 239
wall-bounded ows, 239
turbulence mixing noise, 265
turbulent boundary layer
asymptotic state, 80
coherent structures, 90
comparison to free-shear ows, 69
constant-stress region, 66
ow regimes, 63
higher-order statistics, 82
log-law, 74
mean ow, 73
outer region, 68
power-law, 78
Reynolds stress, 85
root-mean-square, 83
self-preservation, 81
separation of, 158
viscous region, 64
turbulent ow separation, 158
typical eddies, 49, 323
universal equilibrium theory, 325
universal wake function, 69
unsteady separation, 154, 170
archetypes of, 156
local shear layer, 159
velocity prole modiers, 163
velocity-defect law, 68
viscous scales, 49, 63, 309, 325
visualization
rst picture, 37
gallery of, 3651
vortex generators, 176, 230
vortex-induced separation, 158
vorticity ux
spanwise, 30, 211
streamwise, 30
Voyager aircraft, 201, 210, 268
wall heating or cooling, 116, 168
wall jets, 179
wall motion, 111, 168
wall-bounded ows, 31, 105
coherent structures, 90
comparison to free-shear ows, 69
constant-stress region, 66
ow regimes, 63
turbulence enhancement, 239
viscous region, 64
wave cancellation, 118
wavlets, 41
wavy walls, 221