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The production of uniform shear flow in a wind tunnel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2006

P. R. Owen  and
H. K. Zienkiewicz
P. R. Owen
Affiliation:
Mechanics of Fluids Department, University of Manchester
H. K. Zienkiewicz
Affiliation:
Mechanics of Fluids Department, University of Manchester
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Abstract

A nearly uniform shear flow, was obtained in the working section of a wind tunnel by inserting a grid of parallel rods with varying spacing.

The function of such a grid is to impose a resistance to the flow, so graded across the working section as to produce a linear variation in the total pressure at large distances downstream without introducing an appreciable gradient in static pressure near the grid. A method of calculating a suitable arrangement of the rods is described. Although this method is strictly applicable only to weakly sheared flows, an experiment made with a grid designed for a shear parameter as large as 0·45 gave results in close agreement with the theory. There was no evidence from the experiment of any large-scale secondary flow accompanying the shear–a danger inherent in an empirical attempt to grade the resistance of the grid–nor was any tendency observed for the shear to decay with increasing distance from the grid.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 2 , Issue 6 , August 1957 , pp. 521 - 531
Copyright
© 1957 Cambridge University Press

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References

Hawthorne, W. R. & Martin, M. E. 1955 Proc. Roy. Soc. A, 232, 184.
Lighthill, M. J. 1956 J. Fluid Mech. 1, 31.
Schlichting, H. 1955 Boundary Layer Theory. London: Pergamon Press.
Taylor, G. I. & Batchelor, G. K. 1949 Quart. J. Mech. Appl. Math. 2, 1.
Wieghardt, K. E. G. 1953 Aero. Quart. 4, 186.