Relations between skin friction and other surface quantities in viscous flows

This paper presents the derivations of the exact relations between skin friction and other important dynamical and kinematical quantities on a stationary curved surface in a viscous flow by applying the standard methods of differential geometry to the governing partial differential equations in fluid mechanics. In particular, the mathematical structures of the effects of the surface curvature are explicitly expressed, which extend the previous results on a flat surface. These relations reveal that skin friction is intrinsically coupled with surface pressure, temperature, and scalar concentration through the boundary enstrophy flux, heat flux, and mass flux, respectively. As an example, the relation between skin friction and surface pressure is examined in the Oseen flow over a sphere to elucidate the significant effect of the surface curvature at a very small Reynolds number. Two other validation examples are a gravity-driven creeping liquid film flow over a wavy surface and the Falkner-Skan flow over a wedge. Furthermore, the relation is applied to a simulated turbulent channel flow to explore the local near-wall coherent structure and understand its dynamical roles in turbulence production. Published under license by AIP Publishing.