Near-wall statistics of a turbulent pipe flow at shear Reynolds numbers up to 40000

Abstract

This paper reports on near-wall two-component–two-dimensional (2C–2D) particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements of a turbulent pipe flow at shear Reynolds numbers up to $Re_\tau = 40000$ acquired in the CICLoPE facility of the University of Bologna. The 111.5 m long pipe of 900 mm diameter offers a well-established turbulent flow with viscous length scales ranging from 85 µm at $Re_\tau = 5000$ down to 11µm at $Re_\tau = 40000$. These length scales can be resolved with a high-speed PIV camera at image magnification near unity. Statistically converged velocity profiles were determined using multiple sequences of up to 70 000 PIV recordings acquired at sampling rates of 100 Hz up to 10 kHz. Analysis of the velocity statistics shows a well-resolved inner peak of the streamwise velocity fluctuations that grows with increasing Reynolds number and an outer peak that develops and moves away from the inner peak with increasing Reynolds number.