The mechanism of streak formation in near-wall turbulence

Two conceptual frameworks for the origin of the streaky pattern in near-wall developed turbulent flows are compared. According to the framework that dominated the research over several decades, the pattern of streaks is dictated by the pattern of wall-normal motions via the lift-up mechanism. Various concepts within this framework describe the wall-normal motions as induced by longitudinal vortices, hairpin vortices, vortex packets, etc. According to the newly emerging conceptual framework, the combined action of lift-up of the mean profile, mean shear, and viscous diffusion has its own pattern-forming properties. The pattern of streaks is dictated by these linear effects to a much greater extent than by the pattern of the wall-normal motions. Numerical results supporting the new conceptual framework are presented. An approximate approach for calculating the streak spacing within the new framework is proposed. It is shown to have a significant predictive ability.