A universal velocity profile for turbulent wall flows including adverse pressure gradient boundary layers

A recently developed mixing length model of the turbulent shear stress in pipe flow is used to solve the streamwise momentum equation for fully developed channel flow. The solution for the velocity profile takes the form of an integral that is uniformly valid from the wall to the channel centreline at all Reynolds numbers from zero to infinity. The universal velocity profile accurately approximates channel flow direct numerical simulation (DNS) data taken from several sources. The universal velocity profile also provides a remarkably accurate fit to simulated and experimental flat plate turbulent boundary layer data including zero and adverse pressure gradient data. The mixing length model has five free parameters that are selected through an optimization process to provide an accurate fit to data in the range R-tau = 550 to R-tau = 17 207. Because the velocity profile is directly related to the Reynolds shear stress, certain statistical properties of the flow can be studied such as turbulent kinetic energy production. The examples presented here include numerically simulated channel flow data from R-tau = 550 to R-tau = 8016, zero pressure gradient (ZPG) boundary layer simulations from R-tau = 1343 to R-tau = 2571, zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer experimental data between R-tau = 2109 and R-tau = 17 207, and adverse pressure gradient boundary layer data in the range R-tau = 912 to R-tau = 3587. An important finding is that the model parameters that characterize the near-wall flow do not depend on the pressure gradient. It is suggested that the new velocity profile provides a useful replacement for the classical wall-wake formulation.