THE STRUCTURE OF HIGHLY SHEARED TURBULENCE

Uniformly sheared flows have been generated in a high-speed wind tunne l at shear rates higher than previously achieved, in an effort to appr oach those in the inner turbulent boundary layer. As at lower shear ra tes, the turbulence structure was found to attain a self-similar state with approximately constant anisotropies and exponential kinetic ener gy growth. The normal Reynolds stress anisotropies showed no systemati c dependence upon the mean shear within the examined range; however, t he shear stress anisotropy was significantly lower than the low-shear values, in conformity with boundary layer measurements and direct nume rical simulations of homogeneous shear flow.