Mechanism of controlling turbulent channel flow with the effect of spanwise Lorentz force distribution.

A direct numerical simulation (DNS) is performed to investigate the control effect and mechanism of turbulent channel flow with the distribution of spanwise Lorentz force. A sinusoidal distribution of constant spanwise Lorentz force is selected, of which the control effects, such as flow characters, mean Reynolds stress, and drag reductions, at different parameters of amplitude A and wave number kx are discussed. The results indicate that the control effects vary with the parameter A and kx. With the increase of A, the drag reduction rate Dr first increases and then decreases rapidly at low kx, and slowly at high kx. The low drag reduction (or even drag increase) is due to a weak suppression or even the enhancements of the random velocity fluctuation and mean Reynolds stress. The efficient drag reduction is due to the quasi-streamwise vortex structure induced by Lorentz force, which contributes to suppressing the random velocity fluctuation and mean Reynolds stress, and the negative vorticity improves the distribution of streamwise velocity. Therefore, the optimal control effect with a drag reduction of up to 58% can be obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]