Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2013
The decay characteristics and invariants of grid turbulence were investigated by means of laboratory experiments conducted in a wind tunnel. A turbulence-generating grid was installed at the entrance of the test section for generating nearly isotropic turbulence. Five grids (square bars of mesh sizes $M= 15$, 25 and 50 mm and cylindrical bars of mesh sizes
$M= 10$ and 25 mm) were used. The solidity of all grids is
$\sigma = 0. 36$. The instantaneous streamwise and vertical (cross-stream) velocities were measured by hot-wire anemometry. The mesh Reynolds numbers were adjusted to
$R{e}_{M} = 6700$, 9600, 16 000 and 33 000. The Reynolds numbers based on the Taylor microscale
$R{e}_{\lambda } $ in the decay region ranged from 27 to 112. In each case, the result shows that the decay exponent of turbulence intensity is close to the theoretical value of
${- }6/ 5$ (for the
$M= 10~\mathrm{mm} $ grid,
${- }6(1+ p)/ 5\sim - 1. 32$) for Saffman turbulence. Here,
$p$ is the power of the dimensionless energy dissipation coefficient,
$A(t)\sim {t}^{p} $. Furthermore, each case shows that streamwise variations in the integral length scales,
${L}_{uu} $ and
${L}_{vv} $, and the Taylor microscale
$\lambda $ grow according to
${L}_{uu} \sim 2{L}_{vv} \propto {(x/ M- {x}_{0} / M)}^{2/ 5} $ (for the
$M= 10~\mathrm{mm} $ grid,
${L}_{uu} \propto {(x/ M- {x}_{0} / M)}^{2(1+ p)/ 5} \sim {(x/ M- {x}_{0} / M)}^{0. 44} $) and
$\lambda \propto {(x/ M- {x}_{0} / M)}^{1/ 2} $, respectively, at
$x/ M\gt 40{\unicode{x2013}} 60$ (depending on the experimental conditions, including grid geometry), where
$x$ is the streamwise distance from the grid and
${x}_{0} $ is the virtual origin. We demonstrated that in the decay region of grid turbulence,
${ u}_{\mathit{rms}}^{2} { L}_{uu}^{3} $ and
${ v}_{\mathit{rms}}^{2} { L}_{vv}^{3} $, which correspond to Saffman’s integral, are constant for all grids and examined
$R{e}_{M} $ values. However,
${ u}_{\mathit{rms}}^{2} { L}_{uu}^{5} $ and
${ v}_{\mathit{rms}}^{2} { L}_{vv}^{5} $, which correspond to Loitsianskii’s integral, and
${ u}_{\mathit{rms}}^{2} { L}_{uu}^{2} $ and
${ v}_{\mathit{rms}}^{2} { L}_{vv}^{2} $, which correspond to the complete self-similarity of energy spectrum and
$\langle {\boldsymbol{u}}^{2} \rangle \sim {t}^{- 1} $, are not constant. Consequently, we conclude that grid turbulence is a type of Saffman turbulence for the examined
$R{e}_{M} $ range of 6700–33 000 (
$R{e}_{\lambda } = 27{\unicode{x2013}} 112$) regardless of grid geometry.