On phase asymmetries in oscillatory pipe flow

Abstract

We present results from direct numerical simulations (DNS) of oscillatory pipe flowat several dimensionless frequencies Wo ∈ {6.5, 13, 26} and one fixed shear Reynolds number Reτ = 1440. Starting from a fully-developed turbulent velocity field at that Reτ , the oscillatory flow either relaminarises or reaches a conditionally turbulent or strongly asymmetric state depending on Wo. The numerical method is validated by demonstrating excellent agreement of our DNS results with experimental data and analytical predictions from literature for the limiting cases of non-oscillating but turbulent and oscillating but laminar pipe flow. For an oscillating turbulent pipe flow we further found a very good agreement between qualitative descriptions of the characteristic flow features observed in experiments and our DNS. Here, we focus on the observation of a strongly asymmetric behaviour between the positive and the negative half-cycles of the oscillatory pipe flow at Wo = 6.5.