Local structure of turbulence in flows with large Reynolds numbers

Abstract

Results are reported on an experimental investigation of the characteristics of fine-scale pulsations of the velocity in several shear flows (mixing layer, boundary layer, planar, axially symmetric, and spatial wakes, and in the return channel of a large wind tunnel) in an interval of definite Reynolds numbers R(lambda) [approximately-equal-to] 70-3000 with respect to the Taylor microscale lambda. The characteristic scales of most of the studied flows are quite large, and the integral scale of the turbulence reaches 5 m. The apparatus had a high resolving power-the ratio of the hot-wire length to the Kolmogorov scale was varied in the range 0.8-2.5. It is shown that the Kolmogorov constant C in the "two thirds" law and the constants C(epsilon) and &mgr; in the energy-dissipation correlation function are not universal and have a systematic dependence on the coefficient of external intermittency. The same constants determined in a completely turbulent fluid are universal within the errors of the measurements.