Identification of near-wall flow structures producing large wall transfer rates in turbulent mixed convection channel flow

In this paper, we analyze the influence of aiding and opposing buoyancy on the statistics of the wall transfer rates in a mixed convection turbulent flow at low Reynolds numbers in a vertical plane channel. The analysis is carried out using a database obtained from direct numerical simulations performed with a second-order finite volume code. The aiding/opposing buoyancy produces an overall decrease/increase of the intensities of the fluctuations of the wall shear stresses in comparison with the forced convection flow. The near wall structures responsible for the positive extreme values of the fluctuations of the wall shear stress, educed by a conditional sampling technique, consist in two quasi-parallel counterrotating streamwise vortices that convect high momentum fluid towards the wall in the region between them. Buoyancy produces an overall increase of the Reynolds stresses near the cold wall in comparison with the hot wall. This affects the streamwise length, the orientation, the velocity and the intensity of these flow structures near the two walls of the channel. It is found that the How structures near the cold wall are shorter and produce more intense fluctuations than those near the hot wall. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.