Vorticity transport in a corner formed by a solid wall and a free surface

Abstract

There is a growing body of literature in which turbulent boundary layer flow along a mixed-boundary corner formed by a vertical solid wall and a horizontal free surface has been examined. While there is consensus regarding the existence of weak secondary flows in the near corner region, there is some disagreement as to the exact nature and origin of these flows. In two earlier works by the authors, evidence was presented supporting the existence of a weak streamwise vortex which rotates in toward the wall at the free surface and down away from the surface along the wall. This ‘inner secondary vortex’ is accompanied by an ‘outer secondary flow’ which transports low-momentum boundary layer fluid up along the wall and outward at the free surface. The magnitudes of the cross-stream velocities associated with these secondary flows were measured to be on the order of 1% of the free-stream speed. In this paper, high-resolution DPIV measurements made in the cross-stream plane are presented. These clearly show the inner and outer secondary flows. The cross-stream vector fields allow computation of terms in the turbulent streamwise vorticity transport equation. These terms indicate mean vorticity transport at the free surface associated with the outer secondary flow. In addition there appears to be a balance between the wall-normal and free-surface-normal fluctuating vorticity reorientation terms.