Mean velocity profiles of fully-developed turbulent flows near smooth walls

The work proposes an indirect turbulence model to represent the mean streamwise velocity profile of fully-developed turbulent channel flows near smooth walls. The proposed turbulence model highlights that the parameters of the velocity distribution are functions of the friction Reynolds number. It is also shown that the proposed expression for the velocity distribution is in line with the principles of dimensional analysis; it allows one to satisfy the imposed boundary conditions; in the regions close to the wall it allows to reproduce (with good agreement) the velocity profiles available in literature obtained through a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). (C) 2011 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.