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Measurements in an urban-type boundary layer

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Abstract

Wind tunnel measurements of the boundary layer flow over a very rough surface comprising a staggered array of cubes are presented and discussed. Attention is concentrated on the near-wall region, including the canopy region below the tops of the roughness elements. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) and laser Doppler anemometry were used to identify the dominant features of the mean and turbulent flow and these are compared with the better-known features of the flow above the roughness. Spatial correlation data, extracted from the PIV images, are used to provide information about eddy structures and it is shown that these differ in some crucial respects from those typical of more classical boundary layers. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of their relevance to flows within the urban environment.

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Acknowledgments

This work could not have been undertaken without the willing help of technical staff in the School of Engineering Sciences; in particular we are indebted to Mr. M. Tudor-Pole and the late Dr. C. Williams. RR thanks the School for a Research Scholarship. The work was supported by the UWERN programme of the Natural Environment Research Council (under NCAS grant number DST/26/39), for which we are very grateful. We also wish to thank the anonymous referees for a number of helpful comments.

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  1. Ryan T. Reynolds

    Present address: Lockheed Martin Corporation, Palmdale, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

    Ryan T. Reynolds & Ian P. Castro

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  1. Ryan T. Reynolds
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  2. Ian P. Castro
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Correspondence to Ian P. Castro.

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Reynolds, R.T., Castro, I.P. Measurements in an urban-type boundary layer. Exp Fluids 45, 141–156 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-008-0470-z

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