The Effect of Buoyancy Orientation on Flow Structures in Turbulent Channel Flow using DNS

The effect of buoyancy orientation on turbulent channel flow has been investigated using DNS (direct numerical simulation). Grashof number is kept at 9.6 $\times 10^{5}$ while changing the orientation of the buoyancy vector to be parallel or perpendicular to the channel walls. Four study cases can be distinguished during this research namely; streamwise, wall-normal unstable stratification, wall-normal stable stratification and spanwise oriented buoyancy. The driving mean pressure gradient used in all cases is adjusted to keep mass flow rate constant while friction Reynolds number is around 150. At this Grashof number, the skin friction shows decrement in the unstable and stable stratification and increment in the other two cases. Analyses of the changes of flow structure for the four cases are presented highlighting on the mean quantities and second order statistics.