Streamline curvature effects on turbulent boundary layers

A theoretical tool has been developed for predicting, in a nonempirical manner, effects of streamline curvature and coordinate-system rotation on turbulent boundary layers. The second-order closure scheme developed by Wilcox and Traci has been generalized for curved streamline flow and for flow in a rotating coordinate system. A physically based straightforward argument shows that curvature/rotation primarily affects the turbulent mixing energy; the argument yields suitable curvature/rotation terms which are added to the mixing-energy equation. Singular-perturbation solutions valid in the wall layer of a curved-wall boundary layer and a fully developed rotating channel flow demonstrate that, with the curvature/rotation terms, the model predicts the curved-wall and the rotating coordinate system laws of the wall. Results of numerical computations of curved-wall boundary layers and of rotating channel flow show that curvature/rotation effects can be computed accurately with second-order closure.