Very Large-Scale Structures and Their Effects on the Wall Shear-Stress Fluctuations in a Turbulent Channel Flow up to Reτ=640

Abstract

Direct numerical simulation of a fully developed turbulent channel flow has been carried out at three Reynolds numbers, 180, 395, and 640, based on the friction velocity and the channel half width, in order to investigate very large-scale structures and their effects on the wall shear-stress fluctuations. It is shown that very large-scale structures exist in the outer layer and that they certainly contribute to inner layer structures at high Reynolds number. Moreover, it is revealed that very large-scale structures exist even in the wall shear-stress fluctuations at high Reynolds number, which are essentially associated with the very large-scale structures in the outer layer.