Longitudinal vortices imbedded in turbulent boundary layers

The attenuation of skew-induced longitudinal vortices by turbulent or viscous stresses is studied for the case of pure, artificially-generated longitudinal vortices entrained into initially two-dimensional boundary layers in nominally zero pressure gradients. Three types of vortex-boundary interactions are studied in detail: (1) an isolated vortex in a two-dimensional boundary layer; (2) a vortex pair in a turbulent boundary layer with the common flow between the vortices moving away from the surface; (3) a vortex pair in a boundary layer with the common flow moving towards the surface. Detailed mean flow and turbulence measurements are made, showing that the eddy viscosities defined for the different shear-stress components behave in different and complicated ways. Terms in the Reynolds stress transport equations, notably the triple products that effect turbulent diffusion of Reynolds stress, also fail to obey simple rules.