Turbulent rotating plane Couette flow: Reynolds and rotation number dependency of flow structure and momentum transport

Plane Couette flow under spanwise, anticyclonic system rotation [rotating plane Couette flow (RPCF)] is studied experimentally using stereoscopic particle image velocimetry for different Reynolds and rotation numbers in the fully turbulent regime. Similar to the laminar regime, the turbulent flow in RPCF is characterized by roll cells, however both instantaneous snapshots of the velocity field and space correlations show that the roll cell structure varies with the rotation number. All three velocity components are measured and both the mean flow and all four nonzero Reynolds stresses are obtained across the central parts of the channel. This also allows us to determine the wall shear stress from the viscous stress and the Reynolds stress in the center of the channel, and for low rotation rates the wall shear stress increases with increasing rotation rate as expected. The results show that zero absolute vorticity is established in the central parts of the channel of turbulent RPCF for high enough rotation rates, but also that the mean velocity profile for certain parameter ranges shows an S shape giving rise to a negative velocity gradient in the center of the channel. We find that from an analysis of the Reynolds stress transport equation using the present data there is a transport of the Reynolds shear stress towards the center of the channel, which may then result in a negative mean velocity gradient there.