A wind tunnel study of turbulent flow around single and multiple windbreaks, part I: Velocity fields

This paper describes wind-tunnel experiments on the flow around single and multiple porous windbreaks (height H), sheltering a model plant canopy (height H/3). The mean wind is normal to the windbreaks, which span the width of the wind tunnel. The incident turbulent flow simulates the adiabatic atmospheric surface layer. Five configurations are examined: single breaks of three solidities (low, medium, high; solidity = 1 - porosity), and medium-solidity multiple breaks of streamwise spacing 12H and 6H. The experimental emphases are on the interactions of the windbreak flow with the underlying plant canopy; the effects of solidity; the differences in shelter between single and multiple windbreaks; and the scaling properties of the flow. Principal results are: (1) the "quiet zones" behind each windbreak are smaller in multiple than single arrays, because of the higher turbulence level in the very rough-wall internal boundary layer which develops over the multiple arrays. Nevertheless, the overall shelter effectiveness is higher for multiple arrays than single windbreaks because of the "nonlocal shelter" induced by the array as a whole. (2) The flow approaching the windbreak decelerates above the canopy but accelerates within the canopy, particularly when the windbreak solidity is high. (3) A strong mixing layer forms just downwind of the top of each windbreak, showing some of the turbulence and scaling properties of the classical mixing layer formed between uniform, coflowing streams. (4) No dramatic increase in turbulence levels in the canopy is evident at the point where the deepening mixing layer contacts the canopy (around x/H = 3) but the characteristic inflection in the canopy wind profile is eliminated at this point.     

Large-Eddy Simulation of Coherent Turbulence Structures Associated with Scalar Ramps Over Plant Canopies

Large-eddy simulations were performed of a neutrally-stratified turbulent flow within and above an ideal, horizontally- and vertically-homogeneous plant canopy. Three simulations were performed for shear-driven flows in small and large computational domains, and a pressure-driven flow in a small domain, to enable the nature of canopy turbulence unaffected by external conditions to be captured. The simulations reproduced quite realistic canopy turbulence characteristics, including typical ramp structures appearing in time traces of the scalar concentration near the canopy top. Then, the spatial structure of the organised turbulence that caused the scalar ramps was examined using conditional sampling of three-dimensional instantaneous fields, triggered by the occurrence of ramp structures. A wavelet transform was used for the detection of ramp structures in the time traces. The ensemble-averaged results illustrate that the scalar ramps are associated with the microfrontal structure in the scalar, the ejection-sweep structure in the streamwise and vertical velocities, a laterally divergent flow just around the ramp-detection point, and a positive, vertically-coherent pressure perturbation. These vertical structures were consistent with previous measurements made in fields or wind tunnels. However, the most striking feature is that the horizontal slice of the same structure revealed a streamwise-elongated region of high-speed streamwise velocity impacting on another elongated region of low-speed velocity. These elongated structures resemble the so-called streak structures that are commonly observed in near-wall shear layers. Since elongated structures of essentially similar spatial scales were observed in all of the runs, these streak structures appear to be inherent in near-canopy turbulence. Presumably, strong wind shear formed just above the canopy is involved in their formation. By synthesis of the ensemble-averaged and instantaneous results, the following processes were inferred for the development of scalar microfronts and their associated flow structures: (1) a distinct scalar microfront develops where a coherent downdraft associated with a high-speed streak penetrates into the region of a low-speed streak; (2) a stagnation in flow between two streaks of different velocities builds up a vertically-coherent high-pressure region there; (3) the pressure gradients around the high-pressure region work to reduce the longitudinal variations in streamwise velocity and to enhance the laterally-divergent flow and lifted updrafts downstream of the microfront; (4) as the coherent mother downdraft impinges on the canopy, canopy-scale eddies are formed near the canopy top in a similar manner as observed in conventional mixing-layer turbulence.     

Numerical Simulation of the Airflow Across Trees in a Windbreak

The flow across a three-dimensional (3-D) windbreak comprising individual cypress trees is studied to establish the significance and extent of the 3-D flow patterns. The cypress tree is modelled as a solid cylindrical stem and a conic porous canopy. Cases with a single row of trees or two rows of trees with different distances between the rows are considered; in the case of a single row, several densities of the canopy are used. The steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) approximation is solved using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package and a high-resolution mesh. Three-dimensional flow is found in the vicinity of the windbreak up to a leeward distance of 1–2 tree-heights, depending on the density of the canopy, and is manifest as significant lateral variations and reduced vertical flow. At larger leeward distances, a two-dimensional (2-D) flow is established with characteristics similar to existing 2-D studies; the flow leeward of the last row is insensitive to the distance between the rows. Homogeneous 2-D windbreak models are found to be inaccurate in the vicinity of the windbreak. This is exactly the region that needs to be sheltered in many cases, since the inner vegetation is anyway protected by the outer vegetation.     

Techniques for the Eduction of Coherent Structures from Flow Measurements in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Two empirical methods to detect coherent motions embedded in the flow field have been compared, namely the variable interval time average (VITA) method and a wavelet-based technique, both with artificial signals as well as velocity measurements from the atmospheric boundary layer over a forest canopy. It has been found that the wavelet method is slightly better than the VITA approach in coherent structure eduction, even if the results of both techniques are comparable. Also the application of the present approach to simultaneous conditionally sampled wind data has highlighted some important features of coherent structures and gust generation in canopy flows.     

The Effects of Vegetation Density on Coherent Turbulent Structures within the Canopy Sublayer: A Large-Eddy Simulation Study

Large-eddy simulation has become an important tool for the study of the atmospheric boundary layer. However, since large-eddy simulation does not simulate small scales, which do interact to some degree with large scales, and does not explicitly resolve the viscous sublayer, it is reasonable to ask if these limitations affect significantly the ability of large-eddy simulation to simulate large-scale coherent structures. This issue is investigated here through the analysis of simulated coherent structures with the proper orthogonal decomposition technique. We compare large-eddy simulation of the atmospheric boundary layer with direct numerical simulation of channel flow. Despite the differences of the two flow types it is expected that the atmospheric boundary layer should exhibit similar structures as those in the channel flow, since these large-scale coherent structures arise from the same primary instability generated by the interaction of the mean flow with the wall surface in both flows. It is shown here that several important similarities are present in the two simulations: (i) coherent structures in the spanwise-vertical plane consist of a strong ejection between a pair of counter-rotating vortices; (ii) each vortex in the pair is inclined from the wall in the spanwise direction with a tilt angle of approximately 45°; (iii) the vortex pair curves up in the streamwise direction. Overall, this comparison adds further confidence in the ability of large-eddy simulation to produce large-scale structures even when wall models are used. Truncated reconstruction of instantaneous turbulent fields is carried out, testing the ability of the proper orthogonal decomposition technique to approximate the original turbulent field with only a few of the most important eigenmodes. It is observed that the proper orthogonal decomposition reconstructs the turbulent kinetic energy more efficiently than the vorticity.     

Analysis of Coherent Structures Within the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Large-eddy simulation has become an important tool for the study of the atmospheric boundary layer. However, since large-eddy simulation does not simulate small scales, which do interact to some degree with large scales, and does not explicitly resolve the viscous sublayer, it is reasonable to ask if these limitations affect significantly the ability of large-eddy simulation to simulate large-scale coherent structures. This issue is investigated here through the analysis of simulated coherent structures with the proper orthogonal decomposition technique. We compare large-eddy simulation of the atmospheric boundary layer with direct numerical simulation of channel flow. Despite the differences of the two flow types it is expected that the atmospheric boundary layer should exhibit similar structures as those in the channel flow, since these large-scale coherent structures arise from the same primary instability generated by the interaction of the mean flow with the wall surface in both flows. It is shown here that several important similarities are present in the two simulations: (i) coherent structures in the spanwise-vertical plane consist of a strong ejection between a pair of counter-rotating vortices; (ii) each vortex in the pair is inclined from the wall in the spanwise direction with a tilt angle of approximately 45°; (iii) the vortex pair curves up in the streamwise direction. Overall, this comparison adds further confidence in the ability of large-eddy simulation to produce large-scale structures even when wall models are used. Truncated reconstruction of instantaneous turbulent fields is carried out, testing the ability of the proper orthogonal decomposition technique to approximate the original turbulent field with only a few of the most important eigenmodes. It is observed that the proper orthogonal decomposition reconstructs the turbulent kinetic energy more efficiently than the vorticity.     

用连续子波变换提取城市冠层大气湍流的相干结构

切变湍流的相干结构是湍流研究中的重大发现,它表明湍流在表面上看来不规则运动中具有可检测的有序运动,这种相干结构在切变湍流的脉动生成和发展中起着主宰作用.因此识别和提取相干结构对于认识和研究湍流是非常重要的.用数字滤波法将包含相干结构的大尺度信号提取出来以后,再用子波分析,根据子波能量极大值的判别方法,分别确定出大气湍流三个方向上的速度脉动信号相干结构的频率或时间尺度,然后由确定尺度上的连续子波反演公式,提取出大气湍流三个方向上的速度脉动信号相干结构所对应的波形.     

Coherent Structures Detected in Atmospheric Boundary-layer Turbulence using Wavelet transforms at Huaihe River Basin, China

The presence of coherent structures in turbulent shear flows suggests order in apparently random flows. These coherent structures play an important dynamical role in momentum and scalar transport. To develop dynamical models describing the evolution of such motion, it is necessary to detect and isolate the coherent structures from the background fluctuations. In this paper, we decomposed atmospheric turbulence time series into large-scale eddies, which include coherent structures and small eddies, which are stochastic by using Fourier digital filtering. The wavelet energy computed for the three components of the velocity fluctuations in the large-scale eddies appears to have local maximum values at certain time scales, which correspond to the scales or frequencies of coherent structures. We extract coherent signals from large-scale vortices at this scale by inverse wavelet transform formulae. This method provides an objective technique for examining the turbulence signal associated with coherent structures in the atmospheric boundary layer. The average duration of coherent structures in three directions based on Mexican hat wavelets are 33 s, 34 s and 25 s respectively. Symmetric andanti-symmetric wavelet basis functions give almost the same results. The main features of the structures during the day and night have little difference. The dimensionless durations for u, v and w have linear correlations with each other. These relationships are insensitive to the wavelet basis.     

Coherent Turbulent Structures Across a Vegetation Discontinuity

The study of turbulent flow across a vegetation discontinuity is of significant interest as such landscape features are common, and as there is no available theory to describe this regime adequately. We have simulated the three-dimensional dynamics of the airflow across a discontinuity between a forest (with a leaf area index of 4) and a clearing surface using large-eddy simulation. The properties of the bulk flow, as well as the large-scale coherent turbulent structures across the forest-to-clearing transition and the clearing-to-forest transition, are systematically explored. The vertical transport of the bulk flow upstream of the leading edge gives rise to the enhanced gust zone around the canopy top, while the transport downstream of the trailing edge leads to the formation of a recirculation zone above the clearing surface. The large-scale coherent structures across the two transitions exhibit both similarities with and differences from those upstream of the corresponding transition. For example, the ejection motion is dominant over the sweep motion in most of the region 1?<?z/h < 2 (h is the canopy height) immediately downstream of the trailing edge, much as in the forested area upstream. Also, the streamwise vortex pair, which has previously been observed within the canopy sublayer and the atmospheric boundary layer, is consistently found across both transitions. However, the inflection observed both in the mean streamwise velocity, as well as in the vertical profiles of the coherent structures in the forested area, disappears gradually across the forest-to-clearing transition. The coherence of the turbulence, quantified by the percentage of the total turbulence kinetic energy that the coherent structures capture from the flow, decreases sharply immediately downstream of the trailing edge of the forest and increases downstream of the leading edge of the forest. The effects of the ratio of the forest/clearing lengths under a given streamwise periodicity on flow statistics and coherent turbulent structures are presented as well.     

高风速相干结构对通量输送影响的实验研究

切变湍流的相干结构是湍流研究中的重大发现,它表明湍流运动并非完全随机,其中具有可检测的有序结构.本文通过处理南京浦口地区大气边界层观测数据,来分析不稳定层结中高风速相干结构特征.本次观测项目包括对场地中央的气象铁塔上2 m和40 m高度上超声风速仪的脉动速度、温度测量以及风廓线雷达对边界层风速廓线的测量.对超声水平风速时间序列数据进行小波变换 (时间尺度400 s),通过阈值来识别这种高风速相干结构.与多普勒风廓线雷达测量结果对比后发现,这种方法确定的相干结构符合常规的认识,具有较长的时间尺度和较大的垂直尺度 (接近边界层厚度).分析三天相干结构特性得到无量纲空间间隔约为6,即每隔6个边界层厚度的水平位置出现一个高速相干结构.通过与垂直风速小波系数的比较,发现高风速相干结构与向下垂直风速之间有较好相关,这与湍流中 “阵风” 现象的研究结论相似.使用四象限分析方法分类得到两种动量通量输送为负的运动:较小水平风速的上扬 (ejection) 运动 (简称为上扬运动) 和较大水平风速的下扫 (sweep) 运动 (简称为下扫运动),这两种运动在整个湍流活动中处于主导地位.高风速相干结构通过促进下扫运动和抑制上扬运动来影响动量通量的输送.     

Multiple windbreaks: An aeolean ensemble

Near-neutral measurements of the turbulent wind field within and above a sequence of 15 parallel windbreaks on a flat pastoral site are presented. The windbreak fences each had a porosity of 60% and were equally-spaced at 6 times their height (h = 2 m). The following conclusions seem justified for wind directions within 10 ° of the normal to the array:

1. Above the windbreaks (2h), mean windspeeds first decreased and then increased asymptotically to a value in equilibrium with the new surface roughness. At 0.5h, windspeeds exhibited a slow increase down the entire array.
2. Reflecting differences in approach flows, the drag on the initial fence was almost twice that on barriers farther downstream. This reduction in momentum extraction per windbreak was associated with an elevation in the zero-plane displacement to a level equal to 0.8h.
3. At positions well-removed from the initial fences, mean windspeeds were reduced throughout the entire region below shelter height. In this region, the flow became increasingly dominated by downward moving air with velocities much greater than the local average. The zone of reduced turbulence was small, extending only 2h downstream of a barrier at a height of 0.25h. This corresponded with the region excluded from smoke trails released at the top of windbreaks.
4. An approximate TKE budget mid-way between windbreaks 7 and 8 suggests that shear and wake production peak near z = h and that production is balanced by dissipation and vertical transport components. Advective and inertial interaction terms are negligible at this midway position but are likely to be major sources of TKE closer to the windbreak. Local equilibrium is attained above z = 1.5h implying the existence of a constant-stress layer.

The measurements show the practical difficulty of simultaneously reducing both mean windspeeds and turbulence levels with repeated windbreaks at conventional spacings for horticultural applications.     

Effect of Incoming Turbulent Structure on Pollutant Removal from Two-Dimensional Street Canyon

Large-eddy simulations are conducted to investigate the effects of the incoming turbulent structure of the flow on pollutant removal from an ideal canyon. The target canyon is a two-dimensional street canyon with an aspect ratio of 1.0 (building height to street width). Three turbulent flows upwind of the street canyon are generated by using different block configurations, and a tracer gas is released as a ground-level line source at the centre of the canyon floor. Mean velocity profiles for the three flows are similar, except near the roof. However, the root-mean-square values of the velocity fluctuations and the Reynolds shear stress increase with the friction velocity of the incoming turbulent flow. The spatially-averaged concentration within the canyon decreases with increasing friction velocity. Coherent structures of low-momentum fluid, generated above the upwind block configurations, contribute to pollutant removal, and the amount of pollutant removal is directly related to the size of the coherent structure.     

Analysis of Low-Frequency Turbulence Above Tall Vegetation Using a Doppler Sodar

This study applies acoustic sounding to observe coherent structures in the roughness sublayer (RSL) above tall vegetated surfaces. Data were collected on 22 days during two separate field experiments in summer 2003. A quality control scheme was developed to ensure high data quality of the collected time series. The data analysis was done using both discrete and continuous wavelet transform. The flow in the RSL was found to be a superposition of dynamic Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities and convective mixing. The characteristic time scales for coherent structures resulting from the dynamic instabilities were observed to be approximately 20–30 s while thermal eddies have much larger time scales of 190–210 s. The degree of vertical coherency in the RSL increases with the flow evolving from neutral to near-convective conditions. This increase in the degree of organisation is attributed to the evolution of attached thermal eddies. The coherent structures resulting from instabilities were found to be present throughout the RSL but do not contribute to the increased vertical coherency. An alternative conceptual approach for the definition of the RSL is proposed, which yields its maximum vertical extent to five times the canopy height.     

Windbreak Aerodynamics: Is Computational Fluid Dynamics Reliable?

To investigate the suitability of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with regard to windbreak aerodynamics, simulations are performed with a state-of-the-art numerical scheme (Fluent) and compared against experimental data for two- and three-dimensional disturbances, namely the case of a long straight porous shelter fence and the case of a shelter fence erected in a square about an enclosed plot. A thorough sensitivity study quantifies the impact of numerical choices on the simulation (e.g. grid-point density, domain size, turbulence closure), and leads to guidelines that should ensure objective simulation of windbreak flows. On a fine grid Fluent’s “realizable k–ε closure” gives results that are in qualitative accord with the observed mean winds.     

Turbulent mechanisms in stratified fluids

Probability distribution of basic instabilities appearing in stratified flows and point density fluctuations have been studied. Various parameters of the mixing process have been changed in the experiments, to investigate mixing. Detailed flow visualization as well as density measurements have been used in zero-mean-flow laboratory experiments involving grid-stirred turbulent mixing across a density interface and bubble-induced mixing. The overall mixing efficiency of the processes depends on the local Richardson number as well as on the local vorticity. Parameter distributions of low and high mixedness corresponding to different instabilities are presented, showing that dipolar vortices penetrating the interface are the most efficient mixing instabilities.     

Turbulent Structures in a Pine Forest with a Deep and Sparse Trunk Space: Stand and Edge Regions

Forested landscapes often exhibit large spatial variability in vertical and horizontal foliage distributions. This variability may affect canopy-atmosphere exchanges through its action on the development of turbulent structures. Here we investigate in neutral stratification the turbulent structures encountered in a maritime pine forest characterized by a high, dense foliated layer associated with a deep and sparse trunk space. Both stand and edge regions are considered. In situ measurements and the results of large-eddy simulations are used and analyzed together. In stand conditions, far from the edge, canopy-top structures appear strongly damped by the dense crown layer. Turbulent wind fluctuations within the trunk space, where the momentum flux vanishes, are closely related to these canopy-top structures through pressure diffusion. Consequently, autocorrelation and spectral analyses are not quite appropriate to characterize the vertical scale of coherent structures in this type of canopy, as pressure diffusion enhances the actual scale of structures. At frequencies higher than those associated with canopy-top structures, wind fluctuations related to wake structures developing behind tree stems are observed within the trunk space. They manifest themselves in wind velocity spectra as secondary peaks in the inertial subrange region, confirming the hypothesis of spectral short-cuts in vegetation canopies. In the edge region specific turbulent structures develop just below the crown layer, in addition to canopy-top structures. They are generated by the wind shear induced by the sub-canopy wind jet that forms at the edge. These structures provide a momentum exchange mechanism similar to that observed at the canopy top but in the opposite direction and with a lower magnitude. They may develop as in plane mixing-layer flows, with some perturbations induced by canopy-top structures. Wake structures are also observed within the trunk space in the edge region.     

大涡模拟试验中台风梯度风平衡分析

尽管经典台风强度理论是基于梯度风平衡模型,但是已有的飞机观测资料和数值模拟研究发现,边界层中和眼墙附近存在非梯度风平衡气流,前人数值模拟发现,眼墙附近最大的超梯度风可以达到切向风速的16.7%。大涡模拟可以模拟出滚涡和龙卷尺度涡旋等小尺度系统,这些小尺度系统对梯度风平衡可能产生影响,使用中尺度天气预报模式结合大涡模拟（WRF-LES）对模拟台风内核区域方位角平均的梯度风平衡进行了分析,三个大涡模拟试验的水平分辨率分别为333 m、111 m和37 m,结果表明非梯度风平衡气流并未因为分辨率提高而显著增强或产生结构差异,最大超梯度风出现在边界层顶处最大切向风半径的内侧,达到梯度风速的10.8%~16.1%。进一步分析发现,不同台风中心定位方法会影响非梯度风平衡气流,最小气压方差法和最大切向风法可以得到与前人模拟一致的结构,而气压权重法得到的低层超梯度风中心远离眼墙、靠近台风中心,位涡权重法得到的低层超梯度风的径向范围向内扩大,最小气压方差法和最大切向风法更适合用于梯度风平衡研究中的台风中心定位。     

Large-Eddy Simulation of Windbreak Flow

A large-eddy simulation has been performed of turbulent flow around multiple windbreaks set within a wheat canopy under neutral stability conditions. The simulation is validated against a wind tunnel data set taken under similar conditions. Velocity profiles and second-order statistics are presented and compared to those found in the wind tunnel. From the numerical simulation, we discuss spatial distributions of instantaneous velocity fields and pressure statistics, which are important and telling features of the flow that are difficult to measure experimentally. We present a discussion of the momentum balance at various locations with respect to the windbreak, and similarly, we introduce the budget of a passive scalar. These discussions show the importance of the terms in each budget equation as they vary upstream and downstream of the windbreak.     

Observations of Coherent Turbulence Structures in the Near-Neutral Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Turbulence structures of high Reynolds number flow in the near-neutral atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) are investigated based on observations at Shionomisaki and Shigaraki, Japan. A Doppler sodar measured the vertical profiles of winds in the ABL. Using the integral wavelet transform for the time series of surface wind data, the pattern of a descending high-speed structure with large vertical extent (from the surface to more than 200-m level) is depicted from the Doppler sodar data. Essentially this structure is a specific type of coherent structure that has been previously shown in experiments on turbulent boundary-layer flows. Large-scale high-speed structures in the ABL are extracted using a long time scale (240 s) for the wavelet transform. The non-dimensional interval of time between structures is evaluated as 3.0–6.2 in most cases. These structures make a large contribution to downward momentum transfer in the surface layer. Quadrant analyses of the turbulent motion measured by the sonic anemometer (20-m height) suggest that the sweep motion (high-speed downward motion) plays a substantial role in the downward momentum transfer. In general, the contribution of sweep motions to the momentum flux is nearly equal to that of ejection motions (low-speed upward motions). This contribution of sweep motions is related to the large-scale high-speed structures.