This project aims at studying turbulent flow in a roughened plane channel through direct numerical simulation (DNS), from the smooth to the transitional and fully rough regimes.
The project team will explore, for the first time, in the range of high-Reynolds-number, fully rough flow over small roughness elements (k/h<1/40).
Numerical simulations will also include the solution of the transport equation for passive scalars to model heat and mass transfer processes. Studying rough channel flow at high Reynolds number allows to directly probe physical phenomena of interaction between the near-wall and the outer layers, and detailed information about vortex dynamics near the roughness elements.
Instances of turbulent transport over rough solid boundaries abound in nature and in engineering applications, and the new fundamental insights and high-quality data provided by this project can improve upscaled predictive models, and ultimately can translate into the synthesis of improved techniques for drag reduction and/or heat transfer enhancement.
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Delft University of Technology, Netherlands