The structure of highly sheared turbulence

Abstract

Uniformly sheared flows have been generated in a high-speed wind tunnel at shear rates higher than previously achieved, in an effort to approach those in the inner turbulent boundary layer. As at lower shear rates, the turbulence structure was found to attain a self-similar state with approximately constant anisotropies and exponential kinetic energy growth. The normal Reynolds stress anisotropies showed no systematic dependence upon the mean shear within the examined range; however, the shear stress anisotropy was significantly lower than the low-shear values, in conformity with boundary layer measurements and direct numerical simulations of homogeneous shear flow.