Pressure drag reduction via imposition of spanwise wall oscillations on a rough wall

Abstract

The present study tests the efficacy of the well-known viscous drag reduction strategy of imposing spanwise wall oscillations to reduce pressure drag contributions in transitional and fully rough turbulent wall flow. This is achieved by conducting a series of direct numerical simulations of a turbulent flow over two-dimensional (spanwise-aligned) semi-cylindrical rods, placed periodically along the streamwise direction with varying streamwise spacing. Surface oscillations, imposed at fixed viscous-scaled actuation parameters optimum for smooth wall drag reduction, are found to yield substantial drag reduction ( $\gtrsim$ 25 %) for all the rough wall cases, maintained at matched rough..