Pattern-recognition analysis of the velocity field in plane turbulent wakes

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Abstract
A pattern-recognition procedure designed to extract footprints of organized structures from turbulent signals is developed and used to analyse the large-eddy organization of several turbulent wake flows. The pattern-recognition technique is intended to be a general-purpose analytical tool that makes no use of specific flow characteristics, and that can be implemented as a computer code independent of the types of signals to be processed. The technique is applied to analyse the wake generated by a single cylinder at downstream positions ranging from x/D = 10 to x/D = 220. Also the structural features of the wakes behind a rotating cylinder, two cylinders of unequal diameters and two cylinders of equal diameter, one rotating, are examined at x/D = 140. In the near wake the large-scale motions detected are Kármán vortices, whose periodic activity persists up to 60 diameters. Further downstream the most significant coherent structures detected are single and double rollers with shear-aligned vorticity, whose dimensions and velocity intensities are properly scaled by the half-width of the wake and the local r.m.s. values, respectively. The similarities observed in the organized motions identified in the different wakes at x/D = 140, suggest that the roller organization may be an intrinsic characteristic of fully developed turbulent plane wake flows, irrespective of initial conditions.