Leo H. O. Hellström

The long-lasting response of turbulent pipe flow to a step change in surface roughness from rough to smooth is examined. Global flow characteristics such as the pressure gradient, skin friction and mean streamwise momentum attain their equilibrium values within approximately 20 radii downstream of the step change, but the turbulent stresses are exceedingly slow to adjust to the new wall condition (), and they first fall below their equilibrium values before seemingly asymptoting to the full recovery state. To help understand this response, we develop a model that captures both the long development length and the second-order response of the turbulence, and we use a scale decomposition to connect the large-scale motions to the response behaviour.

The energetic motions in direct numerical simulations of turbulent pipe flow at Re _τ =685 are investigated using proper orthogonal decomposition. The procedure is extended such that a pressure component is identified in addition to the three-component velocity field for each mode. The pressure component of the modes is shown to align with the streamwise velocity component associated with the large-scale motions, where positive pressure coincides with positive streamwise velocity, and vice versa. The streamwise evolution of structures is then visualized using a conditional mode, which exhibit a strong similarity to the large-scale, low-momentum motions. A low-pressure region is present in the downstream section of the structure, and a high-pressure region is present in the upstream section. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Toward the development of high-fidelity models of wall turbulence at large Reynolds number’.

Transition to turbulence in pipe flow is investigated experimentally using a temporally resolved dual-plane particle image velocimetry approach, at a Reynolds number of 3440. The flow is analyzed using proper orthogonal decomposition and it is shown that the flow can be divided into two regions: a pseudolaminar region governed by the presence of azimuthally steady traveling waves, and turbulent slugs. The evolution of the structures within the slugs is identified by using the temporally resolved data along with the dual-plane velocity field. These structures are shown to be remarkably similar to the large-scale motions found in fully turbulent flows, with a streamwise and spatiotemporal extent about four pipe radii. The transition between structures is characterized by the detachment and decay of an old structure and the initiation of a new structure at the wall.

Snapshot and classical proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) are used to examine the large-scale, energetic motions in fully developed turbulent pipe flow at Re_D = 47,000 and 93,000. The snapshot POD modes come in pairs, representing the same azimuthal mode number but with a simple phase shift. The first 10 snapshot POD modes, associated with the very large scale motions (VLSMs), contribute 43% of the average Reynolds shear stress, and for first 80 modes u′ and v′ are anti-correlated so that they all contribute to positive shear stress events. The attached motions are contained in the lower order modes, and detached motions do not appear until snapshot POD mode numbers ≥15. We find that snapshot POD can introduce mode mixing, which is avoided in classical POD. Classical POD also gives frequency information, confirming that the low order modes capture well the behavior of the very large scale motions.