Date of Award:

5-1965

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Department name when degree awarded

Fluid Mechanics

Committee Chair(s)

Calvin G. Clyde

Committee

Calvin G. Clyde

Committee

A. A. Bishop

Committee

G. H. Flammer

Committee

G. Z. Watters

Committee

R. K. Watkins

Abstract

Turbulence is a familiar phenomenon which gives rise to complicated problems in many branches of engineering. Hinze has set forth the following definition for turbulence: "Turbulent fluid motion is an irregular condition of flow in which the various quantities show a random variation in time and space coordinates, so that statistically distinct average values can be discerned." Osborne Reynolds (1894) was the first to introduce the notion of statistical mean values into the study of turbulence. He visualized turbulent flow as the sum of mean and eddying motion. By introducing this sum of mean velocity and fluctuating velocity into the Navier-Stokes equations and with the aid of the continuity equation, he derived equations giving relationships between the various components of the fluctuating velocity. It was soon realized that before any further results could be obtained from a theoretical analysis of Reynold's equations of motion, a mechanism had to be postulated for the interaction of fluctuating velocity components at different points in the turbulent field. Consequently, three decades after Reynold's work, phenomenological theories of turbulence, such as the momentum-transfer theory of Prandtl (1926), the vorticity transport theory of Taylor (1932) and the similarity theory of Karman (1930) were introduced. Not only are they based on unrealistic physical models, but they do not furnish any information beyond temporal-mean velocity distribution. A complete theory of turbulence should describe the mechanism of production of turbulence, its convection, diffusion, distribution, and eventual dissipation for any given boundary conditions.

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This work made publicly available electronically on March 1, 2013.

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