TURBULENCE STRUCTURAL-CHANGES FOR A 3-DIMENSIONAL TURBULENT BOUNDARY-LAYER IN A 30-DEGREES BEND

A three-dimensional turbulent boundary layer (3DTBL) was generated on the floor of a low-speed wind tunnel by the imposition of a cross-stream pressure gradient using a 30-degrees bend in the horizontal plane. The surface streamlines were deflected by as much as 22-degrees relative to the local tunnel centreline. Downstream of the bend, the 3DTBL gradually relaxed towards a 2DTBL; this was an impulse-and-recovery experiment which focused on the outer layer. Mean velocities were measured with a three-hole yawmeter and turbulence quantities, which included the Reynolds-stress tensor and the triple products, were measured with a cross-wire hot-wire anemometer. The experiment isolated the effects of crossflow from those of adverse streamwise pressure gradients, which may have clouded interpretations of previous 3DTBL experiments. In particular, the detailed developments of the cross-stream shear stress and of the stress/energy ratio become clearer. The shear-stress vector lagged behind the velocity-gradient vector as crossflow developed; however, the two vectors became more closely aligned downstream of the bend. Reductions in the stress/energy ratio implied that crossflow made shear-stress production less efficient. Another effect of three-dimensionality was a change of sign in the vertical transport of turbulent kinetic energy by turbulence, in the inner part of the boundary layer.