Direct numerical simulations, performed with a high-order spectral-element method, are used to study coherent structures in turbulent pipe flow at friction Reynolds numbers Re-tau = 180 and 550. The database was analysed using spectral proper orthogonal decomposition (SPOD) to identify energetically dominant coherent structures, most of which turn out to be streaks and quasi-streamwise vortices. To understand how such structures can be modelled, the linear flow responses to harmonic forcing were computed using the singular value decomposition of the resolvent operator, using the mean field as a base flow. The SPOD and resolvent analysis were calculated for several combinations of frequencies and wavenumbers, allowing the mapping out of similarities between SPOD modes and optimal responses for a wide range of relevant scales in turbulent pipe flows. In order to explore physical reasons behind the agreement between both methods, an indicator of lift-up mechanism in the resolvent analysis was introduced, activated when optimal forcing is dominated by the wall-normal and azimuthal components, and associated response corresponds to streaks of streamwise velocity. Good agreement between leading SPOD and resolvent modes is observed in a large region of parameter space. In this region, a significant gain separation is found in resolvent analysis, which may be attributed to the strong amplification associated with the lift-up mechanism, here understood as nonlinear forcing terms leading to the appearance of streamwise vortices, which in turn form high-amplitude streaks. For both Reynolds numbers, the observed concordances were generally for structures with large energy in the buffer layer. The results highlight resolvent analysis as a pertinent reduced-order model for coherent structures in wall-bounded turbulence, particularly for streamwise elongated structures corresponding to near-wall streamwise vortices and streaks.

The transition to turbulence in many shear flows proceeds along two competing routes, one linked with finite-amplitude disturbances and the other one originating from a linear instability, as in, e.g., boundary layer flows. The dynamical systems concept of an edge manifold has been suggested in the subcritical case to explain the partition of the state space of the system. This investigation is devoted to the evolution of the edge manifold when linear stability is added in such subcritical systems, a situation poorly studied despite its prevalence in realistic fluid flows. In particular, the fate of the edge state as a mediator of transition is unclear. A deterministic three-dimensional model is suggested, parametrized by the linear instability growth rate. The edge manifold evolves topologically, via a global saddle-loop bifurcation of the underlying invariant sets, from the separatrix between two attraction basins to the mediator between two transition routes. For larger instability rates, the stable manifold of the saddle point increases in codimension from 1 to 2 after an additional local pitchfork node bifurcation, causing the collapse of the edge manifold. As the growth rate is increased, three different regimes of this model are identified, each one associated with a flow case from the recent hydrodynamic literature. A simple nonautonomous generalization of the model is also suggested in order to capture the complexity of spatially developing flows.

This manuscript presents a successful application of the inverse feed-forward control (IFFC) technique for control of the Tollmien-Schlichting (TS) waves over a wing profile placed in an open-circuit wind tunnel. Active cancellation of two-dimensional broadband TS disturbances is performed using a single dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator. The measurements required for the IFFC are performed with microphones, instead of hot wires often used for this purpose, in order to reduce the space occupied by the sensors and assess the suitability of simpler and cheaper devices. An attenuation of the TS-wave amplitude of one order of magnitude is achieved. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) are also performed and compared to the outcome of the experiments. The plasma-actuator model used in DNS is a mapping of the force field used by Fabbiane et al. (In: Proceedings of TSFP-9, Melbourne, 2015a) to the actual geometry, whereas the sensors (microphones) are modeled as pressure probes. Despite these modelling choices, a good agreement between the results of DNS and the experiments is achieved. However, the control performance is better in the DNS, with attenuation of three orders of magnitude of TS-wave amplitude. Further analysis of experiments and simulations shows that the limiting factor in the experiments is the ambient low-frequency acoustic waves in the wind tunnel. These waves are sensed by the microphones and act as noise in the analysis of TS-wave evolution and thus leading to lower coherence between sensors and actuators. This in turn leads to a suboptimal control kernel in the experiment.Please confirm if the inserted city and country are correct in Affiliations [Aff1, Aff2]. Amend if necessary.Confirmed. It is correct.Please confirm if the corresponding author is correctly identified. Amend if necessary.Confirmed. The corresponding author is Pedro P. C. Brito.

In the present work the evolution of the boundary layer over a low-pressure turbine blade is studied by means of direct numerical simulations. The set-up of the simulations follows the experiments by [1], aiming to investigate the unsteady flow field induced by the rotor-stator interaction. The free-stream flow is characterized by high level of free-stream turbulence and periodically impinging wakes. As in the experiments, the wakes are shed by moving bars modeling the rotor blades and placed upstream of the turbine blades. To include the presence of the wake without employing an ad-hoc model, we simulate both the moving bars and the stationary blades in their respective frames of reference and the coupling of the two domains is done through appropriate boundary conditions. The presence of the wake mainly affects the development of the boundary layer on the suction side of the blade. In particular, the flow separation in the rear part of the blade is suppressed. Moreover, the presence of the wake introduces alternating regions in the streamwise direction of high- and low-velocity fluctuations inside the boundary layer. These fluctuations are responsible for significant variations of the shear stress. The analysis of the velocity fields allows the characterization of the streaky structures forced in the boundary layer by turbulence carried by upstream wakes. The breakdown events are observed once positive streamwise velocity fluctuations reach the end of the blade. Both the fluctuations induced by the migration of the wake in the blade passage and the presence of the streaks contribute to high values of the disturbance velocity inside the boundary layer with respect to a steady inflow case. The amplification of the boundary layer disturbances associated with different spanwise wavenumbers has been computed. It was found that the migration of the wake in the blade passage stands for the most part of the perturbations with zero spanwise wavenumber. The non-zero wavenumbers are found to be amplified in the rear part of the blade at the boundary between the low and high speed regions associated with the wakes. 

A linearized formulation for fluid-structure-interaction problems exhibiting rigid-body-motion is presented. The linearized equations are evaluated on a stationary grid and require no mesh motion. Numerical tests are performed to validate the derived formulation by comparing the time evolution between the linear and non-linear equations. In all cases both the growth rate and angular frequency of the instability matches to within 0.1% accuracy. The derived formulation is used to predict the phenomenon of symmetry breaking for a rotating cylinder with an attached splitter-plate, the onset of aeroelastic pitch-oscillations for a NACA0012 airfoil at transitional Reynolds numbers, and investigate the structural sensitivity of the least stable eigenvalue for an oscillating cylinder.

We investigate the applicability of a high-order Spectral Element Method (SEM) to density based topology optimization of unsteady flows in two dimensions. Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) are conducted relying on Brinkman penalization to describe the presence of solid within the domain. The optimization procedure uses the adjoint-variable method to compute gradients and a checkpointing strategy to reduce storage requirements. A nonlinear filtering strategy is used to both enforce a minimum length scale and to provide smoothing across the fluid-solid interface, preventing Gibbs oscillations. This method has been successfully applied to the design of a channel bend and an oscillating pump, and demonstrates good agreement with body fitted meshes. The precise design of the pump is shown to depend on the initial material distribution. However, the underlying topology and pumping mechanism is the same. The effect of a minimum length scale has been studied, revealing it to be a necessary regularization constraint for the oscillating pump to produce meaningful designs. The combination of SEM and density based optimization offer some unique challenges which are addressed and discussed, namely a lack of explicit boundary tracking exacerbated by the interface smoothing. Nevertheless, SEM can achieve equivalent levels of precision to traditional finite element methods, while requiring fewer degrees of freedom. Hence, the use of SEM addresses the two major bottlenecks associated with optimizing unsteady flows: computation cost and data storage.

This work deals with the closed-loop control of streaky structures induced by free-stream turbulence (FST), at the levels of 3.0% and 3.5 %, in a zero-pressure-gradient transitional boundary layer, by means of localized sensors and actuators. A linear quadratic Gaussian regulator is considered along with a system identification technique to build reduced-order models for control. Three actuators are developed with different spatial supports, corresponding to a baseline shape with only vertical forcing, and to two other shapes obtained by different optimization procedures. A computationally efficient method is derived to obtain an actuator that aims to induce the exact structures that are inside the boundary layer, given in terms of their first spectral proper orthogonal decomposition (SPOD) mode, and an actuator that maximizes the energy of induced downstream structures. All three actuators lead to significant delays in the transition to turbulence and were shown to be robust to mild variations in the FST levels. Integrated total drag reductions observed were up to 21% and 19% for turbulence intensity levels of 3.0% and 3.5 %, respectively, depending on the considered actuator. Differences are understood in terms of the SPOD of actuation and FST-induced fields along with the causality of the control scheme when a cancellation of disturbances is considered along the wall-normal direction. The actuator optimized to generate the leading downstream SPOD mode, representing the streaks in the open-loop flow, leads to the highest transition delay, which can be understood due to its capability of closely cancelling structures in the boundary layer.

Different types of thermal boundary conditions are conceivable in numerical simulations of convective heat transfer problems. Isoflux, isothermal and a mixed-type boundary condition are compared by means of direct numerical simulations (for the lowest Reynolds number) and well-resolved large-eddy simulations of a turbulent forced convection pipe flow over a range of bulk Reynolds numbers from Re-b = 5300 to Re-b = 37700, at two Prandtl numbers, i.e. Pr = 0.71 and Pr = 0.025. It is found that, while for Pr = 0.71 the Nusselt number is hardly affected by the type of thermal boundary condition, for Pr = 0.025 the isothermal boundary condition yields approximate to 20% lower Nusselt numbers compared to isoflux and mixedtype over the whole range of Reynolds numbers. A decomposition of the Nusselt number is derived. In particular, we decompose it into four contributions: laminar, radial and streamwise turbulent heat flux as well as a contribution due to the turbulent velocity field. For Pr = 0.71 the contribution due to the radial turbulent heat flux is dominant, whereas for Pr = 0.025 the contribution due to the turbulent velocity field is dominant. Only at a moderately high Reynolds number, such as Re-b = 37700, both turbulent contributions are of similar magnitude. A comparison of first- and second-order thermal statistics between the different types of thermal boundary conditions shows that the statistics are not only influenced in the near-wall region but also in the core region of the flow. Power spectral densities illustrate large thermal structures in low-Prandtl-number fluids as well as thermal structures located right at the wall, only present for the isoflux boundary condition. A database including the first- and second-order statistics together with individual contributions to the budget equations of the temperature variance and turbulent heat fluxes is hosted in the open access repository KITopen (DOI : https: //doi.org/10.5445/IR/1000096346).

Subcritical transition to turbulence in spatially developing boundary layer flows can be triggered efficiently by finite amplitude perturbations. In this Rapid Communication, we employ adjoint-based optimization to identify optimal initial perturbations in the Blasius boundary layer, culminating in the computation of the subcritical transition critical energy threshold and the associated fully localized critical optimum in a spatially extended configuration, the so called minimal seed. By dynamically rescaling the variables with the local boundary layer thickness, we show that the identified edge trajectory approaches the same attracting phase space region as previously reported edge trajectories, and reaches the region more efficiently.

We present a two-point model to investigate the underlying source mechanisms for broadband shock-associated noise (BBSAN) in shock-containing supersonic jets. In the model presented, the generation of BBSAN is assumed to arise from the nonlinear interaction between downstream-propagating coherent structures with the quasi-periodic shock cells in the jet plume. The turbulent perturbations are represented as axially extended wavepackets and the shock cells are modelled as a set of stationary waveguide modes. Unlike previous BBSAN models, the physical parameters describing the hydrodynamic components are not scaled using the acoustic field. Instead, the source characteristics of both the turbulent and shock components are extracted from the hydrodynamic region of large-eddy simulation and particle image velocimetry datasets. Apart from using extracted data, a reduced-order description of the wavepacket structure is obtained using parabolised stability equations. The validity of the model is tested by comparing far-field sound pressure level predictions to azimuthally decomposed experimental acoustic data from a cold Mach 1.5 underexpanded jet. At polar angles and frequencies where BBSAN dominates, encouraging comparisons of the radiated noise spectra for the first three azimuthal modes, in both frequency and amplitude ( at peak frequency), reinforce the suitability of using reduced-order wavepacket sources for predicting BBSAN peaks. On the other hand, wavepacket jitter is found to have a critical role in recovering sound amplitude at interpeak frequencies. The paper presents a quantitative demonstration that the wavepacket-shock interaction, carefully reconstructed by extracting components from data or linearised models, contains the correct essential flow physics that accounts for most features of the far-field BBSAN spectra.