Experimental study of turbulent boundary layers on groove/smooth flat surfaces

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the turbulent boundary layers on both groove and smooth flat surfaces. The flow structures were shown in a water tunnel using the hydrogen-bubble flow visualization technique. The measurement results indicate that: (1) the grooves can effectively reduce accumulation of low-speed fluids, decrease the number of the low-speed streaks and depress oscillation of the streaks in the sublayer; (2) the grooves can restrain forming of the horseshoe vortices in the buffer region; (3) the grooves bate oscillation and kinking of the quasi-streamwise vortices and restrain production of the hairpin vortices and the ring vortices, reducing both frequency and intensity of the turbulence bursting; (4) the grooves directly affect the flow structures in the sublayer of the boundary layer and then modulate the flow field up to the buffer region and the logarithmic region by restraining development and interaction of the vortices.