Experimental investigation of turbulent flow over a permeable rough wall

Abstract:

Permeable walls are encountered in a variety of geophysical flows, including alluvial river beds, canopies and urban environments. Permeable walls possess very different boundary conditions as compared to classic impermeable walls (i.e. the slip condition and penetration of flow into the bed). Permeability allows flow interactions across the wall interface, resulting in notable mass, momentum and energy exchange. Such exchange takes place in the so-called transition layer and often occurs through turbulent flow mechanisms. It is increasingly recognized that turbulence plays a key role in a number of important natural functions, including biogeochemical as well as geomorphological processes. However, the flow physics of the transition layer are still poorly understood due to a lack of quantitative investigation of these permeable systems within which physical and optical access are severely compromised. This is particularly true for state-of-the-art flow measurement techniques such as particle image velocimetry (PIV) that require unaberrated optical access to the measurement locations. To overcome optical limitations, a refractive index matching (RIM) technique was employed herein to gain full optical access to the transition layer. Sodium Iodide aqueous solution (63% by weight and RI ~ 1.496 at 20°C) served as a working fluid, and an acrylic resin (RI ~ 1.499) was chosen for fabricating wall models. Measurements were performed using high-resolution planar PIV in different configurations to characterize the turbulent boundary layer and the transition layer. The wall models comprised uniform spheres packed in a cubic arrangement, and two cases were modeled - impermeable and permeable walls that were both rough. To eliminate the effect of roughness, and thus isolate the effect of permeability, the surface roughness of the two wall models was kept identical. This allowed us to obtain a more meaningful comparison and highlight the impact of wall permeability in natural systems. The primary finding of this new study is that wall permeability promotes significant structural alteration of velocity fluctuations in transitional layer, which be detailed, whereas mean streamwise velocity presents no dependence of wall permeability but rather the topographical effect of the roughness.