Time-resolved planar particle image velocimetry was used to analyse the structuring of a turbulent boundary layer into uniform momentum zones (UMZs). The instantaneous peak-detection method employed by Adrian et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 422, 2000, pp. 1–54) and de Silva et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 786, 2016, pp. 309–331) is extended to account for temporal coherence of UMZs. The resulting number of zones detected appears to follow a normal distribution at any given instant. However, the extreme cases in which the number of zones is either very high or very low, are shown to be linked with two distinct flow states. A higher than average number of zones is associated with a large-scale $Q2$ event in the log region which creates increased small-scale activity within that region. Conversely, a low number of zones corresponds to a large-scale $Q4$ event in the log region and decreased turbulent activity away from the wall. The residence times, within the measurement plane, of zones belonging to the latter scenario are shown to be on average four times larger than those of zones present during higher than average zone structuring states. For both cases, greater residence times are observed for zones of higher momentum that are generally closer to the free stream.

A novel square-fractal-element grid was designed in order to increase the downstream measurement range of fractal grid experiments relative to the largest element of the grid. The grid consists of a series of square-fractal-elements mounted to a background mesh with spacing L 0 = 100 mm. Measurements were performed in the region 3.5 x/L 0 48.5, which represents a significant extension to the x/L 0 < 20 of previously reported square fractal grid measurements. For the region x/L 0 24 it was found that a powerlaw decay region following q 2 ∼ (x − x 0 ) m exists with decay exponents of m = −1.39 and −1.37 at Re L0 = 57, 000 and 65, 000, respectively. This agrees with decay values previously measured for regular grids (−1 m −1.4). The turbulence in the near-grid region, x/L 0 < 20, is shown to be inhomogeneous and anisotropic, in apparent contrast with previous fractal grid measurements. Nonetheless, power-law fits to the decay of turbulent kinetic energy in this region result in m = −2.79, similar to m ≈ −2.5 recently reported by Valente & Vassilicos (2011) for space-filling square fractals. It was also found that C is approximately constant for x/L 0 25, while it grows rapidly for x/L 0 < 20. These results reconcile previous fractal-generated turbulence measurements with classical grid turbulence measurements.

The most expansive active grid parametric study to date is conducted in order to ascertain the relative importance of the various grid parameters. It is identified that the three most important parameters are the Rossby number, Ro, the grid Reynolds number, Re M , and the wing geometry. For Ro > 50, an asymptotic state in turbulence intensity is reached where increasing Ro further does not change the turbulence intensity while other parameters continue to vary. Three wing geometries are used: solid square wings, solid circular wings, and square wings with holes. It is shown that the wings with the greatest blockage produce the highest turbulence intensities and Re λ , but that parameters such as the Kolmogorov, Taylor and integral scales are not significantly influenced by wing geometry. Finally, it is demonstrated that for several different sets of initial conditions that produce the same Re λ , the spectra are collapsed everywhere but at the largest scales. This result suggests that regardless of the very different origins of the turbulence, the shape of the spectra at high wavenumbers is dependent only on Re λ when normalized by Kolmogorov variables, hence demonstrating a degree of independence from the initial conditions.

The influence of turbulence on the flow around a wall-mounted cube immersed in a turbulent boundary layer is investigated experimentally with particle image velocimetry and hot-wire anemometry. Free-stream turbulence is used to generate turbulent boundary layer profiles where the normalised shear at the cube height is fixed, but the turbulence intensity at the cube height is adjustable. The free-stream turbulence is generated with an active grid and the turbulent boundary layer is formed on an artificial floor in a wind tunnel. The boundary layer development Reynolds number (Re x ) and the ratio of the cube height (h) to the boundary layer thickness (δ) are held constant at Re x = 1.8 × 10 6 and h/δ = 0.47. It is demonstrated that the stagnation point on the upstream side of the cube and the reattachment length in the wake of the cube are independent of the incoming profile for the conditions investigated here. In contrast, the wake length monotonically decreases for increasing turbulence intensity but fixed normalised shear-both quantities measured at the cube height. The wake shortening is a result of heightened turbulence levels promoting wake recovery from high local velocities and the reduction in strength of a dominant shedding frequency.

Streamwise velocity and wall-shear stress are acquired simultaneously with a hot-wire and an array of azimuthal/spanwise-spaced skin friction sensors in large-scale pipe and boundary layer flow facilities at high Reynolds numbers. These allow for a correlation analysis on a per-scale basis between the velocity and reference skin friction signals to reveal which velocity-based turbulent motions are stochastically coherent with turbulent skin friction. In the logarithmic region, the wall-attached structures in both the pipe and boundary layers show evidence of self-similarity, and the range of scales over which the self-similarity is observed decreases with an increasing azimuthal/spanwise offset between the velocity and the reference skin friction signals. The present empirical observations support the existence of a self-similar range of wall-attached turbulence, which in turn are used to extend the model of Baars et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 823, p. R2) to include the azimuthal/spanwise trends. Furthermore, the region where the self-similarity is observed correspond with the wall height where the mean momentum equation formally admits a self-similar invariant form, and simultaneously where the mean and variance profiles of the streamwise velocity exhibit logarithmic dependence. The experimental observations suggest that the self-similar wall-attached structures follow an aspect ratio of $7:1:1$ in the streamwise, spanwise and wall-normal directions, respectively.