A comparative study of the influence of curvature on the boundary layers and on the inner region of wall jets

In this paper, the differences in the curvature effects on turbulent boundary layers and on the inner region of turbulent wall jets are discussed. Both convex and concave curvature effects are considered. The comparison shows that the magnitudes of the various turbulent components are altered very differently for the two class of turbulent shear flows. In the boundary layers, it is mainly the centrifugal instability through which the curvature effects manifest themselves, whereas for wall jets there is the additional influence of the turbulence levels in the outer region which caps the inner region. Though, both the boundary layer and the inner region of a wall jet have very similar mean velocity distribution, the turbulence characteristics and their response to curvature effects are seen to be much different.