Composite active drag control in turbulent channel flows

A composite drag control (CDC) combining the opposition (OC) and spanwise opposed wall-jet forcing (SOJF) methods is studied in a turbulent channel flow via direct numerical simulation of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. A maximum drag reduction of about 33% is obtained for CDC - much higher than that produced by either individual method (namely, 19% for SOJF and 23% for OC). Due to the small power input required for both OC and SOJF methods, a significant net power saving (about 32%) is achieved via CDC. Flow analysis shows that CDC can take advantage of both OC and SOJF methods to better suppress drag producing near-wall turbulent structures - vortices and streaks. In particular, due to the presence of the large-scale coherent swirls generated by SOJF, it is more effective than OC in suppressing the random turbulence. Moreover, due to the OC's role in suppressing random small-scale turbulence, CDC requires weaker large-scale coherent swirls than those using SOJF only - hence decreasing the drag contribution associated with large-scale swirls. In summary, our results suggest prospects of employing composite control strategy for effective skin friction drag reduction, particularly at very high Reynolds numbers.