Measurement of turbulence properties

Abstract

The aim of the research is to investigate anisotropic turbulence intensities, id est to investigate the distribution of Reynolds stresses and energy spectra in a square cross-section channel, downstream of a semi-active jet turbulence grid generating anisotropic turbulent airflow. In addition to the semi-active jet turbulence grid, another type of turbulence grid was developed and experimentally investigated. This grid contains vertical, flexible strips of aluminum (in this case, there are no perpendicular (horizontal) grid elements), which vibrate at a frequency depending on the velocity of the main airflow. Besides the investigation of the velocity- and turbulence intensity distributions, another main objective of the research is to measure the von Kármán energy spectrum when the turbulence cannot be considered isotropic. This aspiration of ours is justified by the knowledge gap present in the literature in this specific field. Monin has carried out a theoretical study to extend and generalize the von Kármán – Howarth isotropic principal stress equation to the anisotropic regime. The proposed new experimental work aims to provide a solid experimental background for verifying and validating the physical correctness of the Monin equation, which may result in a new theoretical understanding and perception of the major issues and the nature of anisotropic turbulence. Since the anisotropic energy spectra are expected to exhibit different characteristics from the isotropic Kolmogorov spectra, these new experimental results may contribute to the development of new anisotropic and engineering turbulence models that can be used in industrial applications.