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Published February 2015 | public
Journal Article

Triadic scale interactions in a turbulent boundary layer

Abstract

A formal relationship between the skewness and the correlation coefficient of large and small scales, termed the amplitude modulation coefficient, is established for a general statistically stationary signal and is analysed in the context of a turbulent velocity signal. Both the quantities are seen to be measures of phase in triadically consistent interactions between scales of turbulence. The naturally existing phase relationships between large and small scales in a turbulent boundary layer are then manipulated by exciting a synthetic large-scale motion in the flow using a spatially impulsive dynamic wall roughness perturbation. The synthetic scale is seen to alter the phase relationships, or the degree of modulation, in a quasi-deterministic manner by exhibiting a phase-organizing influence on the small scales. The results presented provide encouragement for the development of a practical framework for favourable manipulation of energetic small-scale turbulence through large-scale inputs in a wall-bounded turbulent flow.

Additional Information

© 2015 Cambridge University Press. Received 11 December 2014; revised 26 January 2015; accepted 3 February 2015. The authors gratefully acknowledge AFOSR (grant FA 9550-12-1-0469, program manager D. Smith) for the financial support of this work, and a graduate fellowship (S.D.) from the Resnick Institute at Caltech. We are grateful to K. Rosenberg for help with the wind tunnel set-up, and to R. Moarref and M. Luhar for many stimulating research discussions.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023