Surface roughness effects on turbulent boundary layer structures

A turbulent boundary layer structure which develop over a k-type rough wall displays several differences with those found on a smooth surface. The magnitude of the wake strength depends on the wall roughness. In the near-wall region, the contribution to the Reynolds shear stress fraction, corresponding to each event, strongly depends on the wall roughness. In the wall region, the diffusion factors are influenced by the wall roughness where the sweep events largely dominate the ejection events. This trend is reversed for the smooth-wall. Particle Image Velocimetry technique (PIV) is used to obtain the fluctuating flow field in the turbulent boundary layer in order to confirm this behavior The energy budget analysis shows that the main difference between rough- and smooth-walls appears near the wall where the transport terms are larger for smooth-wall. Vertical and longitudinal turbulent flux of the shear stress on both smooth and rough surfaces is compared to those predicted by a turbulence model. The present results confirm that any turbulence model must take into account the effects of the surface roughness.