LOW-REYNOLDS-NUMBER TURBULENT CHANNEL FLOWS

An analysis - valid for the flow of incompressible fluids through closed and open channels - of the maintenance of the Reynolds stresses, which starts from the Navier-Stokes and mass conservation equations, is applied to steady, two-dimensional, fully developed, low-Reynolds-number turbulent channel flows. The approach adopted considers the Reynolds stresses to depend on the structure of the turbulent components over the entire flow field. As a result of the analysis, the distributions of the mean velocity, the Reynolds stress and the turbulence intensities are found in the inner and outer region in which the shear flow is divided. By matching the solutions in the two regions, new uniform approximations for the distributions are obtained. The derived profiles are compared with available experimental data and the agreement is found to be satisfactory.