Reynolds Shear Stress Distribution in Turbulent Channel Flows

Direct numerical simulations were carried out for turbulent channel flows with Re-tau = 180, 395 and 590 to investigate the turbulent flow structure related to the Reynolds shear stress. By examining the probability density function, the second quadrant (Q2) events with the largest contribution to the mean Reynolds shear stress were identified. The change in the inclination angle of Q2 events varies with wall units in y(+) < 50 and with the channel half height in y/h > 0.5. Conditionally averaged flow fields for the Q2 event show that the flow structures associated with Reynolds shear stress are a quasi-streamwise vortex in the buffer layer and a hairpin-shaped vortex in the outer layer. Three-dimensional visualization of the distribution of high Reynolds shear stress reveals that the organization of hairpin vortices in the outer layer having a size of 1.5 similar to 3 h is associated with large-scale motions with high Reynolds shear stress in the outer layer.