Analysis of the Contribution of Large Scale Motions to the Skin Friction of a Zero-Pressure-Gradient Turbulent Boundary Layer Using the Renard-Deck Decomposition

Abstract

Coherent flow structures in turbulent boundary layers have been an active field of research for many decades, as they might be the key to reveal the mechanics of turbulence production and transport in turbulent shear flows. Renard and Deck (2016) proposed a theoretical decomposition for the mean skin-friction coefficient based on the mean kinetic energy budget in the streamwise direction. This decomposition, referred to as the Renard-Deck (RD) decomposition, decomposes the mean skin friction generation into three physical mechanisms in an absolute reference frame, namely, direct viscous dissipation, turbulent kinetic energy production, and spatial growth. In this study, the large scale motions (LSMs) are extracted using a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) of the velocity field based on high-spatial-resolution two-dimensional – two-component particle image velocimetry (HSR 2C-2D PIV) of a zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layer (ZPG-TBL), and their effect on the skin friction via RD decomposition.