A Survey of Time-Averaged Characteristics of Laminar and Turbulent Horseshoe Vortices

Abstract

The time-averaged kinematical and dynamical characteristics of the junction vortex system in front of a symmetrical obstacle are systematically analyzed for both laminar and turbulent flows. A wide set of experimental and numerical results from the literature is coordinated in nondimensional form together with some new computational data. In turbulent flows the dimensions of the vortex system in the symmetry plane depend only on the obstacle geometry; in laminar systems they are also correlated with the Reynolds number and the thickness of the incoming boundary layer. The horseshoe vortices induce shear stresses on the bottom several times higher than those of the undisturbed boundary layer.