The hunt for the K\'arm\'an "constant'' revisited

Abstract

The logarithmic law of the wall, joining the inner, near-wall mean velocity profile (abbreviated MVP) in wall-bounded turbulent flows to the outer region, has been a permanent fixture of turbulence research for over hundred years, but there is still no general agreement on the value of the pre-factor, the inverse of the K\'arm\'an ``constant'' $\kappa$, or on its universality. The choice diagnostic tool to locate logarithmic parts of the MVP is to look for regions where the indicator function $\Xi$ (equal to the wall-normal coordinate $y^+$ times the mean velocity derivative $\dd U^+/\dd y^+$) is constant. In pressure driven flows however, such as channel and pipe flows, $\Xi$ is significantly affected by a term proportional to the wall-normal coordinate, of order $\mathcal{O}(\Reytau^{-1})$ in the inner expansion, but moving up across the overlap to the leading $\mathcal{O}(1)$ in the outer expansion. Here we show that, due to this linear overlap term, $\Reytau$'s well beyond $10^5$ are required to produce one decade of near constant $\Xi$ in channels and pipes. The problem is resolved by considering the common part of the inner asymptotic expansion carried to $\mathcal{O}(\Reytau^{-1})$, and the leading order of the outer expansion. This common part contains a \textit{superposition} of the log law and a linear term $S_0 \,y^+\Reytau^{-1}$, and corresponds to the linear part of $\Xi$, which, in channel and pipe, is concealed up to $y^+ \approx 500-1000$ by terms of the inner expansion. A new and robust method is devised to simultaneously determine $\kappa$ and $S_0$ in pressure driven flows at currently accessible $\Reytau$'s, yielding $\kappa$'s which are consistent with the $\kappa$'s deduced from the Reynolds number dependence of centerline velocities. A comparison with the zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layer further clarifies the issues.