6.

4 Laminar Fully Developed Pipe Flow

Consider fully developed Poiseuille flow in a round pipe of diameter d, radius R.

Analysis

For laminar flow in a circular pipe:

Sample
Problem

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6.5 Turbulence Modeling
constant density and viscosity and no thermal interaction

Both laminar and turbulent flows satisfy these equations. For laminar flow, where there are
no random fluctuations, we go right to the attack and solve them for a variety of geometries

What about Turbulent flow?

Reynolds’ Time-Averaging Concept

For turbulent flow, because of the fluctuations, every velocity and pressure term
in the above equations is a rapidly varying random function of time and space.

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At present our mathematics cannot handle such instantaneous fluctuating variables.
No single pair of random functions V(x, y, z, t) and p(x, y, z, t) is known to be a solution to
these equations.
Moreover, our attention as engineers is toward the average or mean values of velocity,
pressure, shear stress, and the like in a high-Reynolds-number (turbulent) flow.

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This approach led Osborne Reynolds in 1895 to rewrite continuity and momentum equations
in terms of mean or time-averaged turbulent variables.

where T is an averaging period taken to be longer than any signifi cant period of the
fluctuations themselves.
an averaging period T ≈ 5 s is usually quite adequate.

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However, the mean square of a fluctuation is not zero and is a measure of the intensity
of the turbulence:

Reynolds’ idea was to split each property into mean plus fluctuating variables:

The continuity relation reduces to

Analysis

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The most important of these is the momentum relation in the mainstream,
or x, direction, which takes the form

in duct and boundary layer flow, the stress associated with direction y normal to
the wall is dominant, and we can approximate with excellent accuracy a simpler
streamwise momentum equation

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 Laminar shear is dominant near the wall (the wall layer)
Turbulent shear dominates in the outer layer
There is an intermediate region, called the overlap layer, where both laminar and turbulent
shear are important.
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In the outer layer 𝜏turb is two or three orders of magnitude greater than 𝜏lam, and vice versa in
the wall layer.
The Logarithmic Overlap Law there are three regions in turbulent flow near a wall:

1. Wall layer: Viscous shear dominates.

2. Outer layer: Turbulent shear dominates.
3. Overlap layer: Both types of shear are important.

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Let 𝜏𝑤 be the wall shear stress, and let δ and U represent the thickness and velocity at the edge of
the outer layer, y = δ.

For the wall layer, Prandtl deduced in 1930 that u must be independent of the shear
layer thickness:

By dimensional analysis

law of the wall,

u* is termed the friction velocity

because it has dimensions {L / T},
although it is not actually a flow
velocity.

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 Kármán in 1933 deduced that u in the outer layer is independent of molecular viscosity, but its
deviation from the stream velocity U must depend on the layer thickness δ and the other
properties:

by dimensional analysis we rewrite this as

is called the velocity-defect law for the outer layer.

Both the wall law and the defect law are found to be accurate for a wide variety of
experimental turbulent duct and boundary layer flows

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They are different in form, yet they must overlap smoothly in the intermediate layer.
In 1937 C. B. Millikan showed that this can be true only if the overlap layer velocity
varies logarithmically with y:

Over the full range of turbulent smooth wall flows, the dimensionless constants κ and B are
found to have the approximate values κ ≈ 0.41 and B ≈ 5.0. Equation (6.28) is called the
logarithmic overlap layer.

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Thus by dimensional reasoning and physical insight we infer that a plot of u versus
ln y in a turbulent shear layer will show a curved wall region, a curved outer region,
and a straight-line logarithmic overlap.
The four outer-law profiles shown all merge
smoothly with the logarithmic overlap law but have
different magnitudes because they vary in external
pressure gradient.

The wall law is unique and follows the linear viscous

relation

from the wall to about y+= 5, thereafter curving over to

merge with the logarithmic law at about y+= 30.

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 This figure is the basis for most existing “theory” of
turbulent shear flows.
Notice that we have not solved any equations at all
but have merely expressed the streamwise velocity
in a neat form.

The logarithmic law (6.28) actually approximates nearly the entire velocity profile, except for the outer law when
the pressure is increasing strongly downstream (as in a diffuser).

The inner wall law typically extends over less than 2 percent of the profile and can be neglected.
Thus we can use Eq. (6.28) as an excellent approximation to solve nearly every turbulent fl ow problem presented
in this and the next chapter.

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Advanced Modeling Concepts
L. Prandtl, who invented boundary layer theory in 1904, later proposed an eddy viscosity model of the Reynolds stress
term

The term𝝁𝒕 , which is a property of the flow, not the fluid, is called the eddy viscosity and can be modeled in
various ways.

The most popular form is

Where l is called the mixing length of the turbulent eddies (analogous to mean free path in molecular theory).
Near a solid wall, l is approximately proportional to distance from the wall, and Kármán suggested

Sample
Problem

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