Local isotropy and anisotropy in a high-Reynolds-number turbulent boundary layer

Abstract

High-frequency fluctuations of temperature and of longitudinal and vertical velocity components have been measured with high-resolution probes in order to test the local-isotropy assumption. The simultaneous measurements of u’, w’, θ’ and the measurements in two space points with various separations in either the longitudinal or transverse directions were made in the large boundary layer (Rλ = 616) of the I.M.S.T. Air-Sea Interaction Simulation Tunnel. There is consistent evidence that the local-isotropy assumption is satisfied by the velocity field at all scales smaller than twenty times the Kolmogorov microscale (η ≈ 0.27 × 10−3 m), i.e. in the dissipative range of scales but not in the expected inertial subrange. The direct comparisons of the lateral and longitudinal temperature autocorrelation and structure functions show that the temperature field does not verify the isotropy assumption at all scales greater thanor equal to 37 and presumably at even smaller scales. This is confirmed by the study of the temperature-increment skewness and flatness factors. The spectral distribution -of the non-zero derivative skewness (S(θ) = +0.9) shows that it is essentially contributed by those scales for which the dynamic field satisfies isotropy.