The use of DNS to define stress producing events for turbulent flow over a smooth wall

Over the past 15 years direct numerical simulations (DNS) of turbulent flow and particle image velocimetry (PIV) have provided the opportunity to obtain information about a turbulent velocity field simultaneously at a large number of locations. This paper gives a personal viewpoint of how these techniques are providing new insights about the Reynolds stress producing structures in turbulence generated by flow over a smooth boundary.