Bubbly Turbulent Drag Reduction Is a Boundary Layer Effect

Thomas H. van den Berg, Dennis P. M. van Gils, Daniel P. Lathrop, and Detlef Lohse
Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 084501 – Published 21 February 2007

Abstract

In turbulent Taylor-Couette flow, the injection of bubbles reduces the overall drag. On the other hand, rough walls enhance the overall drag. In this work, we inject bubbles into turbulent Taylor-Couette flow with rough walls (with a Reynolds number up to 4×105), finding an enhancement of the dimensionless drag as compared to the case without bubbles. The dimensional drag is unchanged. As in the rough-wall case no smooth boundary layers can develop, the results demonstrate that bubbly drag reduction is a pure boundary layer effect.

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  • Received 2 October 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.084501

©2007 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Thomas H. van den Berg1, Dennis P. M. van Gils1, Daniel P. Lathrop2, and Detlef Lohse1,*

  • 1Department of Applied Physics, IMPACT, and J. M. Burgers Center for Fluid Dynamics, Physics of Fluids Group, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, Netherlands
  • 2Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

  • *Electronic address: d.lohse@utwente.nl

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Issue

Vol. 98, Iss. 8 — 23 February 2007

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