Lighthill's mechanism and vorticity cascade in the logarithmic layer of wall turbulence

Abstract

We investigate Lighthill's proposed turbulent mechanism for near-wall concentration of spanwise vorticity by calculating mean flows conditioned on motion away from or toward the wall in an $Re_\tau=1000$ database of plane-parallel channel flow. Our results corroborate Lighthill's proposal throughout the entire logarithmic layer, but extended by counterflows that help explain anti-correlation of vorticity transport by advection and by stretching/tilting. We present evidence also for Lighthill's hypothesis that the vorticity transport in the log-layer is a ``cascade process'' through a scale-hierarchy of eddies, with intense competition between transport outward from and inward to the wall. Townsend's model of attached eddies of hairpin-vortex type accounts for half of the vorticity cascade, whereas we identify necklace-type or ``shawl vortices'' that envelop turbulent sweeps as supplying the other half.