Power laws for rough wall turbulent boundary layers

N. A. Kotey, D. J. Bergstrom, and M. F. Tachie

Citation: Phys. Fluids 15, 1396 (2003); doi: 10.1063/1.1565334

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PHYSICS OF FLUIDS VOLUME 15, NUMBER 6 JUNE 2003

Power laws for rough wall turbulent boundary layers

N. A. Kotey, D. J. Bergstrom, and M. F. Tachie
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5A9
共Received 10 January 2002; accepted 12 February 2003; published 29 April 2003兲
An assessment of the ability of power laws to describe the mean velocity profile in the overlap
region of a zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer is reported. The experiments were
performed in a wind tunnel on smooth and four different types of rough surfaces at moderate
Reynolds numbers. A novel modification to the power law velocity profile is proposed to account for
the effect of surface roughness in the overlap region. This modification is analogous to the use of a
roughness function to produce a downward shift in the logarithmic velocity profile. The roughness
parameters in the proposed equation more accurately follow the effect of roughness on skin friction
than does the roughness shift ⌬U ⫹ . The present study shows that power laws can be used to
effectively describe the mean velocity profile over a wider range than a log law for both smooth and
rough surfaces. © 2003 American Institute of Physics. 关DOI: 10.1063/1.1565334兴

I. INTRODUCTION
Scaling laws continue to be an important topic in turbu-
lence research, partly because they lead directly to skin fric-
tion laws. At sufficiently high Reynolds number, the mean
velocity profile of a turbulent boundary layer shows three
distinct regions: namely the inner, overlap and outer regions.
Some recent studies in near-wall turbulence research have
advocated power laws rather than the classical log law as the
appropriate scaling law for the overlap region in a turbulent
boundary layer. However, the controversy over this issue has
not yet been resolved, as evidenced, for example, by the
contradictory conclusions of two different studies using log
laws1 and power laws2 to analyze the same experimental
data. Of specific interest is the Reynolds number dependence
of the parameters used by the scaling laws. The assumption
of a logarithmic velocity profile in the overlap region accord-
ing to classical theory is strictly valid only at infinite Rey-
nolds numbers. It follows that a logarithmic region of sig-
nificant extent may only develop in the limit of very large
Reynolds number. Power laws, on the other hand, are as-
sumed to be valid at finite Reynolds numbers where the
power exponent and multiplicative factor are Reynolds num-
ber dependent.3,4 Since ‘‘infinite’’ Reynolds numbers are
rarely encountered in practice, a power law formulation may
offer a more appropriate scaling law for the overlap region of
the turbulent boundary layers produced in laboratory experi-
ments.
The present analysis focuses on the overlap region of the
turbulent boundary layer. Two different theories, i.e., those of
Barenblatt3 and George and Castillo,5 have been proposed
which represent the velocity profile for the overlap region of
a turbulent boundary layer on a smooth surface as a power
law. The friction velocities obtained using these power law
formulations for smooth wall data have been shown to be
comparable to the values obtained by other reliable
techniques.6 Additional discussions of power laws and log
laws include that of Panton7 and the paper of Oberlack8
which used Lie-group analysis. Panton7 points out that log
laws and power laws apply to different regions of the bound-
ary layer, more specifically, that a power law extends into the
inner part of the wake region whereas a log law does not. A
third power law theory for turbulent boundary layers is given
by Afzal,9 and the application of Barenblatt’s theory specifi-
cally to zero-pressure gradient boundary layers is described
in a more recent paper by the same group.10 However, the
focus of the present paper is not the theoretical basis of the
different power law formulations, but rather their application
to boundary layers on rough surfaces. Two previous papers
by Tachie et al.6 and Bergstrom et al.,11 based on the thesis
research of Tachie,12 have applied the power law form of
scaling to boundary layers on rough surfaces in the context
of open channel flow. The present paper specifically consid-
ers their application to a zero pressure gradient canonical
boundary layer on a rough surface.
Correlations for the skin friction coefficient and velocity
shift 共due to roughness兲 as functions of the equivalent sand
grain height, k s , are still widely used to estimate the effect of
a given roughness in engineering flows. These
correlations13,14 are based on the assumption of a logarithmic
velocity profile in the overlap region. In this paper, we pro-
pose a modification to the power law formulation of George
and Castillo5 for the mean velocity profile to include the
effect of surface roughness. The proposed equation is given
by
Ci
U ⫹⫽ 共 y ⬘⫹ 兲␥⫹␰, 共1兲
E
where following the power law formulation of George and
Castillo,5 C i and ␥ are, respectively, the multiplicative con-
stant and exponent for a smooth surface, and y ⬘ ⫹ ⫽y ⫹
⫹a ⫹ , where a⫽⫺16 represents an origin shift for measur-
ing y associated with the stream-wise growth of a mesolayer
region (30⭐y ⫹ ⭐300). In the rough-wall formulation given
in Eq. 共1兲, E and ␰ are new roughness parameters which

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Phys. Fluids, Vol. 15, No. 6, June 2003
depend on the specific form of the roughness geometry. The
proposed power law, including the roughness parameters,
can be used to provide accurate estimates of the skin friction
in boundary layers on rough surfaces.
II. EXPERIMENTAL ARRANGEMENT
The experiments were performed in a single return wind
tunnel with a test section 1129 mm⫻912 mm in cross-
section and approximately 2000 mm long. The velocity mea-
surements were taken on a smooth surface as well as four
types of rough surfaces:
共1兲 A 1500 mm long and 550 mm wide steel plate 共PS兲 with
circular perforations arrayed in a hexagonal pattern. The
plate was 1.4 mm thick with perforations 2.0 mm in
diameter spaced 4.0 mm between centers giving an
openness ratio of about 43%.
共2兲 A 1440 mm long and 480 mm wide steel plate 共PL兲 with
circular perforations arrayed in a hexagonal pattern. The
plate was 1.6 mm thick with perforations 4.8 mm in
diameter spaced 6.3 mm between centers giving an
openness ratio of about 53%.
共3兲 A stainless steel wire screen 共WS兲 made of 0.6 mm wires
with 7.0 mm centerline spacing. The ratio of centerline
spacing to wire diameter was about 12 and the openness
ratio approximately 84%.
共4兲 A sand grain roughness 共SG兲 created from sand grains of
1.2 mm nominal mean diameter carefully attached to the
ground plane using a double-sided tape to ensure a uni-
form distribution.
The smooth wall measurements were obtained on an el-
evated medium density fiber 共MDF兲 board with a smooth
surface finish, which was screwed onto the floor of the wind
tunnel. The boundary layer was tripped using 3 mm diameter
pebbles glued onto a 15 mm strip of double-sided tape. The
tape was placed 300 mm from the leading edge of the
wooden board and spanned the entire width of the board.
Velocity measurements were obtained at sections 800 and
1000 mm downstream of the trip using a Pitot tube approxi-
mately 1 mm in diameter connected to a Datametrics Baro-
cell Differential Pressure Sensor 共Type: 590D-10W-2Q8-
V1X-4D兲. The pressure signal was digitized using a 12-bit
A/D converter 共National Instruments兲 at a sampling fre-
quency of 1000 Hz; 5000 samples were taken at each wall
normal position. Pitot tube measurements near a solid wall
are subject to various errors for which near-wall corrections,
e.g., McMillan,15 have been developed. However, as noted
by Perry et al.,16 for viscous distances from the wall greater
than y ⫹ ⫽100, the corrections tend to be insignificant. In our
case, given the uncertainty in locating the virtual origin for
the rough wall data 共discussed below兲, for the purpose of
profile fitting the limited number of rough-wall mean veloc-
ity measurements below y ⫹ ⫽100 were excluded. For the
smooth wall flows, a few uncorrected data points below this
value were retained (30⬍y ⫹ ⬍100) which introduces some
error. For example, the near-wall Pitot tube correction for
mean shear was estimated to be approximately 15% at y ⫹
⫽50 for the SM1 data set. However, given the y ⫹ range over
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Power laws for rough wall turbulent boundary layers 1397
which the mean velocity profiles were fitted, the error intro-
duced by these few data points on the profile fitting should
be minimal. For each surface, measurements were obtained
at three different Reynolds numbers by varying the free-
stream velocity from 20 to 42 m/s. The corresponding range
in Reynolds number was approximately 5000⬍Re␪⬍13000.
A previous analysis of the mean velocity profiles17 suggests
that Reynolds number effects were minimal except for per-
haps the lowest Reynolds number data on the smooth sur-
face.
The nominal free-stream turbulence intensity and pres-
sure gradient were 0.3% and ⫺10 Pa/m, respectively. This
pressure gradient corresponded to a Clauser equilibrium pa-
rameter of approximately ⫺0.035 and ⫺0.023 for the me-
dian Reynolds number data on the smooth and sand grain
surfaces, respectively. For flow over rough surfaces, the ab-
solute wall-normal distance y is the distance relative to the
top plane of the roughness elements plus the virtual origin ␧,
which is defined as the distance below the top plane of the
roughness element at which the mean velocity U⫽0. Fol-
lowing the review of prior measurements on wire mesh
roughness reported by Krogstad et al.,18 we used typical val-
ues of 0.16⭐␧/k⭐0.26, where the k values used for each
surface were as follows: for each perforated plate, the plate
thickness, i.e., k PS⫽1.4 mm and k PL⫽1.6 mm; for the sand
grain surface, the mean diameter of the sand particles, k SG
⫽1.2 mm; and for the wire screen, the wire diameter, k WS
⫽0.6 mm. For the dimensions of the roughness elements
used in this study, we estimated ␧/ ␦ ⬍0.01 or ␧ ⫹ ⬍65 for the
present flow conditions. Except in the very near wall region
where the value of ␧ is comparable to y, the effect of ␧ is
negligible over a significant portion of the flow.
The boundary layer thickness ␦ is defined as the loca-
tion above the surface at which the local mean velocity is
99% of the free-stream value and we estimated the uncer-
tainty in ␦ to be ⫾7%. The uncertainty in the mean velocity
was estimated to be less than 2% and the uncertainty in the
friction velocity U ␶ was estimated to be 2 and 5% for the
smooth and rough wall data, respectively. Error bars illustrat-
ing the uncertainty in the measurements are included in Figs.
1 and 3. Further details of the uncertainty analysis are re-
ported in Kotey.19
III. DETERMINATION OF THE FRICTION VELOCITY
USING POWER LAWS
George and Castillo 共GC兲5 derived a power law expres-
sion for the mean velocity profile in a zero-pressure gradient
turbulent boundary layer by applying the asymptotic invari-
ance principle 共AIP兲 to the boundary layer equations. Assum-
ing complete similarity in the inner and outer layers in the
limit of infinite Reynolds numbers and using so-called near
asymptotic analysis in the overlap region, they obtained a
power law description of the mean velocity in outer and in-
ner coordinates as follows:
冉 冊
␥
U⫺U ⬁ y⫹a
⫽C o , 共2兲
U⬁ ␦
1398 Phys. Fluids, Vol. 15, No. 6, June 2003 Kotey, Bergstrom, and Tachie

U
U␶
⫽C i
␩冉 冊
y⫹a ␥
, 共3兲
better agreement in the outer region. However, a recent re-
assessment of the SuperPipe data by Perry et al.16 suggests
that the mean velocity data may need to be corrected for
where ␩ (⫽ ␯ /U ␶ ) is the viscous length scale; C o , C i , and ␥ near-wall effects, and that the effects of surface roughness
are functions with a weak dependence on the Reynolds num- may also be present. Our own experiments on a smooth
ber ␦ ⫹ (⫽ ␦ U ␶ / ␯ ). It should be noted that the origin shift, a, surface19 had compared the U ␶ values obtained from the
was not derived from the AIP, but rather introduced on the above power laws to reference values obtained using the
basis of additional arguments. The friction law determined technique of Krogstad et al.18 which is based on the log law.
by the velocity parameters in the overlap region was also The values of U ␶ obtained using this technique had previ-
shown to be a power law given by ously been compared with those obtained from the velocity
U␶
U⬁
⫽
Co
Ci冉 冊 冉 冊1/1⫹ ␥
U ⬁␦
␯
⫺ ␥ / 共 1⫹ ␥ 兲
. 共4兲
gradient at the wall using LDA measurements. The two sets
of values were within 4% of each other. Additional details of
the application of this technique are given in Tachie et al.23
Barenblatt3 developed a different scaling law for boundary In processing the smooth surface results, an iterative
layers in pipe flows based on the assumption of incomplete procedure was used to obtain U ␶ from the experimental data
similarity with respect to the local Reynolds number. His following the power law formulation of GC.5 First, using the
scaling law suggests a power law velocity profile of the form best available estimate for the friction velocity U ␶ , a scatter
graph of U ⫹ versus y ⫹ was plotted for the experimental data
U ⫹ ⫽C 共 y ⫹ 兲 ␣ , 共5兲
at each test condition. This estimate for U ␶ was used to ob-
where U ⫹ ⫽U/U ␶ , y ⫹ ⫽yU ␶ / ␯ , and U ␶ is the friction ve- tain ␦ ⫹ , and subsequently C i , C o /C i , and ␥ working from
locity. The coefficients C and ␣ are approximated by func- the correlation’s given in GC.5 Then, with these values of C i
tions of Re(⫽dŪ/␯) given by and ␥, Eq. 共3兲 was used to determine the velocity profile 共in
inner coordinates兲 which was plotted over the experimental
1 5 data. The two graphs for the velocity profile were then com-
C⫽ ln Re⫹ 共6兲
) 2 pared to determine if there was any significant deviation, in
which case the procedure was repeated using the ‘‘im-
and proved’’ value for U ␶ . A similar iterative procedure was also
3 used to obtain U ␶ based on the Barenblatt3 and ZPS22 for-
␣⫽ , 共7兲 mulations. The percentage difference between the reference
2 ln Re
values for U ␶ and those calculated from Eqs. 共4兲 and 共8兲
where Ū is the mean fluid velocity averaged over the pipe were within 4%, indicating that power laws can give an ac-
cross section of diameter d. Equations 共6兲 and 共7兲 were de- curate representation of the smooth surface data. Further de-
termined from the classical pipe flow data of Nikuradse.20 tails are reported in Kotey.19
Barenblatt et al.10 later showed that the above power law The above iterative procedure was also used to fit the
gives an accurate description of the velocity distribution in a power law velocity profile proposed by GC5 to the rough
self-similar intermediate region adjacent to the viscous sub- wall data. In this case, optimized values of C o , C i , and ␥
layer in a boundary layer. Djenidi et al.21 obtained the fol- were used since the correlation proposed by GC5 for a
lowing friction law by extrapolating Eq. 共4兲 to y⫽ ␦ and smooth surface did not give acceptable results. The iterative
redefining the Reynolds number as Re⫽␦U⬁ /␯, procedure was continued until no further improvement was

冉 冊 1/共 1⫹ ␣ 兲 obtained. Typically, an R-squared assessment of goodness of

U␶ 1 exp共 3/2␣ 兲
⫽ .
U ⬁ exp共 3/2␣ 兲 C rough wall experimental data to the Barenblatt3 and ZPS22
They applied this relation specifically to low Reynolds num-
ber smooth-wall boundary layers, with Re␪⫽540 and Re␪
⫽940. In the context of a careful re-examination of the
power law proposed by Barenblatt,3 Zagarola et al. 共ZPS兲22
recalibrated their power law constants based on extensive
velocity measurements in the Princeton SuperPipe Facility to
obtain
C⫽0.7053 ln Re⫹0.3055,
1.085 6.535
␣⫽ ⫹ .
ln Re ln Re2
They evaluated U ␶ from the static pressure gradient d P/dx
measured in the pipe flow, which provides an accurate means
to determine U ␶ . A conclusion of their study was that the
intermediate region was better represented by a log law pro-
file, while a power law was a convenient curve fit to obtain
共8兲 fit indicated values of 0.98 or better. All attempts to fit the
formulations using Eq. 共8兲 for the friction velocity proved
futile and will not be reported here. This may be partly ex-
plained by the fact that for these two studies, the coefficients
were calibrated working from velocity data obtained in pipe
flows, for which the wake component is much less than that
for a boundary layer.
IV. EFFECT OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS ON THE
共9兲 MEAN VELOCITY PROFILE
In the past, most engineering theories of near-wall tur-
共10兲 bulent flow on a smooth surface postulated a universal ve-
locity profile that is characterized by an overlap region where
the mean streamwise velocity component varies logarithmi-
cally with the wall normal distance, i.e.,
1
U ⫹ ⫽ ln y ⫹ ⫹B, 共11兲
␬

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Phys. Fluids, Vol. 15, No. 6, June 2003 Power laws for rough wall turbulent boundary layers 1399

where ␬ ⬇0.41 and B⬇5.0 are empirical constants. The inner

region of a turbulent boundary layer is very thin and extends
to y ⫹ ⫽30 at most. Sufficiently large roughness elements at
the surface break up this viscous layer and cause strong
changes to the entire velocity profile, especially in the over-
lap layer.24 The effect of roughness on the logarithmic veloc-
ity profile is a downward shift of the smooth wall curve to
the right corresponding to an increase in C f 共as will be
shown later兲. The slope of this overlap region, however, does
not change. This behavior can be represented by a downward
shift denoted ⌬U ⫹ at a fixed y ⫹ . In this context, ⌬U ⫹ is
often referred to as the roughness function. The log law for a
rough surface is then written as
1
U ⫹ ⫽ ln y ⫹ ⫹B⫺⌬U ⫹ . 共12兲
␬
For a fully rough flow with large k ⫹ , the inner layer is
independent of viscosity and ⌬U ⫹ takes the following form:
1
⌬U ⫹ ⫽ ln k ⫹ ⫹D. 共13兲
␬
Here the constant D depends on the specific form of the
roughness geometry and hence ⌬U ⫹ is not a unique function
of k ⫹ . Prandtl and Schlichting25 originally proposed a value
of D⫽⫺3.5 based on Nikuradse’s experiments20 for sand
grain roughness.
Given the usefulness of the roughness function for loga-
rithmic profiles, a similar treatment of the effect of roughness
on a power law velocity profile is presented below. The
power law formulation for the overlap region proposed by
GC5 关Eq. 共3兲兴 can be rewritten as
U ⫹ ⫽C i 共 y ⬘ ⫹ 兲 ␥ . 共14兲
More specifically, for smooth and rough surfaces we have
U ⫹ ⫽C iS 共 y ⬘ ⫹ 兲 ␥ S , 共15兲
U ⫹ ⫽C iR 共 y ⬘ ⫹ 兲 ␥ R 共16兲
with the subscript S and R denoting smooth and rough sur-
faces, respectively.
Taking the logarithm of both sides, Eqs. 共15兲 and 共16兲
become
log U ⫹ ⫽ ␥ S log y ⬘ ⫹ ⫹log C iS , 共17兲 FIG. 1. Mean velocity distribution in inner coordinates for smooth surface
together with different scaling laws at three different Re␪ .
log U ⫹ ⫽ ␥ R log y ⬘ ⫹ ⫹log C iR . 共18兲
Equations 共17兲 and 共18兲 show that the logarithm of the ve-
locity profile in the overlap region is a straight line for both or
smooth and rough surfaces with slope ␥ and intercept C i
when extrapolated to the log U⫹-axis. At approximately the
same free-stream velocity over the test surfaces, experiments log U ⫹ ⫽ 共 ␥ S ⫹ ␰ 兲 log y ⬘ ⫹ ⫹log 冉 冊
C iS
E
. 共20兲
show that ␥ S ⬍ ␥ R and C iS ⬎C iR . This implies that surface
roughness influences the power law formulation of the ve- Comparing Eqs. 共18兲 and 共20兲, then
locity profile in the overlap region 共on a log–log plot兲 by
increasing the slope and decreasing the intercept on the C iS
log U⫹ axis simultaneously. If the slope is increased by a ␥ R⫽ ␥ S⫹ ␰ and C iR ⫽ . 共21兲
E
factor ␰ and the intercept decreased by log E, then Eq. 共18兲
can be recast as
Thus, a power law velocity profile in the overlap region for a
log U ⫹ ⫽ 共 ␥ S ⫹ ␰ 兲 log y ⬘ ⫹ ⫹log C iS ⫺log E 共19兲 rough wall boundary layer can be written as

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1400 Phys. Fluids, Vol. 15, No. 6, June 2003 Kotey, Bergstrom, and Tachie

FIG. 2. Mean velocity profiles in inner variables and their corresponding fits using log-law and power law 共GC兲 formulations: 共a兲 smooth, 共b兲 perforated plate,
共c兲 sand grain, 共d兲 wire screen.

Ci V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

U ⫹⫽ 共 y ⬘⫹ 兲␥⫹␰, 共1兲
E
To begin, we briefly review the application of power
where E and ␰ are roughness parameters 共both non-negative兲 laws to smooth wall data. Figure 1 shows the experimental
and C i and ␥ are the multiplicative constant and the expo- data in terms of inner coordinates for the smooth surface on
nent for a smooth surface. a semilog plot together with the scaling curves of the various

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Phys. Fluids, Vol. 15, No. 6, June 2003
power laws at three different Re␪ . The log law 共with ␬
⫽0.41 and B⫽5.0) is also shown for comparison. As is typi-
cal of boundary layers on a flat plate, a significant wake
component was present. The outer edge of the wake coin-
cides with the boundary layer thickness; thereafter the veloc-
ity profile is not changing and hence horizontal. The power
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Power laws for rough wall turbulent boundary layers 1401
FIG. 3. Mean velocity profiles in inner variables for
smooth and rough surfaces.
laws generally describe the velocity profile in the overlap
region over a wider range than the log law. In each case, the
formulation of ZPS22 described the mean velocity data over
the greatest extent.
Figure 2 looks at velocity profiles on a semilog plot for
both smooth and rough surfaces using the data for the high-
FIG. 4. Mean velocity profiles in (log U⫹,log y⫹) coor-
dinates for smooth and rough surfaces and their corre-
sponding power law 共GC兲 fits.
1402 Phys. Fluids, Vol. 15, No. 6, June 2003 Kotey, Bergstrom, and Tachie

TABLE I. Summary of friction velocity and power law constants.

Reference U ␶ 共GC兲 ⌬U ␶
Test Re␪ U ␶ 共m/s兲 共m/s兲 共%兲 Co Ci ␥
SM1 5176 0.795 0.785 1.260 0.917 9.000 0.132
SM2 7277 1.140 1.148 0.700 0.922 9.600 0.120
SM3 9980 1.520 1.530 0.660 0.926 9.700 0.118
PS1 4872 1.110 1.115 0.450 0.940 2.753 0.240
PS2 7606 1.700 1.640 3.529 0.930 2.755 0.239
PS3 10170 2.170 2.074 4.423 0.930 2.700 0.240
PL1 5679 1.300 1.306 0.460 0.930 1.950 0.258
PL2 8383 1.900 1.838 3.263 0.930 2.205 0.244
PL3 11726 2.370 2.318 2.194 0.930 2.250 0.240
SG1 5603 1.300 1.246 4.154 0.930 1.730 0.280
SG2 8031 1.900 1.881 1.010 0.930 1.775 0.267
SG3 11337 2.450 2.466 0.653 0.920 1.905 0.252
WS1 7129 1.230 1.247 1.382 0.910 1.930 0.261
WS2 9239 1.830 1.820 0.546 0.910 2.020 0.251
WS3 12849 2.350 2.300 2.128 0.910 2.110 0.248

est Re␪ for each surface. Recall that only the power law
formulation of GC5 proved applicable to rough surfaces. It is
apparent that the power law formulation of GC5 describes the
velocity profile in the overlap region over a wider range than
the log law for rough surfaces as well. For example, the
power law of GC5 is able to adequately represent the velocity
profile in the overlap region for the small-perforated plate
共PS兲 up to the outer edge of the boundary layer at y⫽ ␦ as
seen in Fig. 2共b兲. This is consistent with the observation of
Panton7 that power laws can extend into the inner region of
the wake. A previous study, which was based on a log law
formulation,17 found that as surface roughness increases, so
does the strength of the wake component. Power laws are,
therefore, naturally more attractive for rough surfaces due to
high wake components.
Figure 3 compares the logarithmic velocity profiles ob-
tained on both the smooth and rough surfaces for the highest
Reynolds numbers. For each surface, it illustrates the down-
ward shift in the rough wall velocity profiles by a constant
amount ⌬U ⫹ . The magnitude of ⌬U ⫹ clearly varies with
the type of roughness. For example, PS shows the smallest
shift from the smooth wall data, while the wire screen 共WS兲,
in spite of its smallest physical size, shows the highest
roughness shift. Furthermore, as noted above, the wire screen
also has the largest wake component, so that the extent of the
linear logarithmic region is the least. Additional details of the
effect of roughness on a log law profile are given in Kotey,19
and a comprehensive discussion of an analysis of the present
data set using logarithmic velocity profiles is documented in
a companion paper.17
Consideration will now turn to the effect of surface
roughness on the region of the mean velocity profile which
can be represented by power law velocity profiles. In fitting
the power laws to the rough wall data, data points in the
range y ⫹ ⬍100 were not considered due to possible uncer-
tainty in locating the virtual origin. We do not expect the
uncertainty in ␧ to have any significant effect on the values
of the power law constants and the friction velocities be-
cause, as noted earlier, the values of ␧ are very small com-
pared to the data range 共up to ␦ ⫹ ) over which the power
laws were fitted.
Figure 4 uses a log–log plot to show the downward shift
of the intercept and increase in slope of the rough wall
curves when compared to the smooth wall curve. In Eq. 共1兲,

TABLE II. Summary of roughness parameters and skin friction coefficient.

Test ␦⫹ C f ⫻103 ⌬U ⫹ E ␰ k⫹

SM1 1640 3.04

SM2 2390 2.80
SM3 3370 2.63
PS1 2080 5.98 7.5 3.27 0.108 98
PS2 3000 5.81 8.1 3.49 0.119 144
PS3 3820 5.47 8.2 3.51 0.117 181
PL1 2440 8.03 10.8 4.61 0.126 147
PL2 3390 7.32 10.8 4.35 0.124 207
PL3 4440 6.40 10.3 4.31 0.122 261
SG1 2440 8.18 11.1 5.20 0.148 93
SG2 3440 7.64 10.8 5.41 0.147 141
SG3 4520 6.97 11.1 5.09 0.134 185
WS1 2730 6.91 10.5 4.66 0.129 47
WS2 3600 6.74 11.1 4.75 0.131 68
WS3 4850 6.30 11.3 4.60 0.130 86

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Phys. Fluids, Vol. 15, No. 6, June 2003
FIG. 5. Variation of roughness parameters with dimensionless roughness
height.
E represents a downward shift in the intercept whereas ␰
represents an increase in slope. The small-perforated plate
共PS兲 shows the smallest downward shift as well as the small-
est increase in slope compared to the smooth wall data, while
the sand grain 共SG兲 shows the largest downward shift and the
largest increase in slope. The proposed roughness parameters
E and ␰ thus indicate that SG has the ‘‘largest’’ roughness. As
shown in Fig. 3, where a log law correlation was used to
obtain U ␶ , the WS showed approximately the same rough-
ness shift as the SG with slightly lower C f values on aver-
age. The proposed roughness parameters E and ␰ follow the
trend of C f in the same manner as did ⌬U ⫹ when the over-
lap region was assumed to be logarithmic.
Table I gives a summary of the friction velocities (U ␶ )
obtained from the power law formulation of GC5 as well as
the corresponding coefficients used to fit the power law
curves. Also shown in the table are the percentage differ-
ences in U ␶ compared with the reference values obtained by
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Power laws for rough wall turbulent boundary layers 1403
the technique of Krogstad et al.18 共based on a logarithmic
profile兲. The percentage differences between the reference
values for U ␶ and those calculated from Eq. 共4兲 were within
5%, indicating that the power law formulation of GC5 gives
consistent values for U ␶ on both smooth and rough surfaces.
As an additional check, U ␶ was also calculated using the von
Kármán momentum integral equation on the smooth surface
and the wire mesh, respectively, at Re␪⫽7277 and Re␪
⫽9239. The percentage difference between U ␶ obtained
from Eq. 共4兲 and the momentum integral equation were 1%
and 5%, respectively, for the smooth surface and the wire
mesh. Any uncertainty in U ␶ calculated using the von
Kármán momentum integral equation may be partly attrib-
uted to such effects as neglecting contribution of turbulent
fluctuations to the momentum flux and the limitations of Pi-
tot tube measurements in the near-wall region.26
The values of the proposed roughness parameters E and
␰ are summarized in Table II. For a given surface, E and ␰ are
only weak functions of the dimensionless roughness height
over the limited range of Reynolds numbers considered.
However, the average value of these parameters does vary
from one surface to another. Also shown in Table II are the
skin friction coefficient C f , the roughness shift ⌬U ⫹ calcu-
lated for a logarithmic profile, and the dimensionless rough-
ness height k ⫹ (⫽kU ␶ / ␯ ). Table II suggests that the pro-
posed roughness parameters E and ␰ follow the trend of C f
more closely than does ⌬U ⫹ . For example, while ⌬U ⫹ was
approximately the same for the SG and WS data, there was a
clear difference in the C f values, which the parameters E and
␰ were both able to follow.
Recall that for a logarithmic profile, the dependence of
the roughness function ⌬U ⫹ on the dimensionless roughness
height 共or roughness Reynolds number兲 k ⫹ is given by the
logarithmic relation in Eq. 共13兲. The corresponding depen-
dence of the parameters E and ␰ on k ⫹ is portrayed in Fig. 5.
For a given surface roughness, the value of E is nearly con-
stant as shown in Fig. 5共a兲. However, the mean value of E
depends on the specific form of the roughness geometry. Al-
though PS and PL have the same roughness geometry, PS has
lower values of E compared to PL. This difference in E val-
ues can be attributed to the difference in their openness ratio.
The values of ␰ exhibit similar trends as shown in Fig. 5共b兲,
although in this case the difference observed in PS is much
less. The fact that the k values pertain to different geometric
features implies some ambiguity in using a single dimension-
less length scale such as k ⫹ to define a rough surface. Fur-
thermore, with only three different Reynolds number values
for each surface, it is premature to try to draw any substan-
tive conclusions.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The present experiments demonstrate that for a zero-
pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer, the power law
formulation of GC5 adequately describes the velocity profile
for both smooth and rough surfaces, and provides an accu-
rate prediction of the friction velocity. For the range of Rey-
nolds numbers and types of roughness considered, a power
law formulation was able to match the experimental velocity
1404 Phys. Fluids, Vol. 15, No. 6, June 2003
profile over a greater extent than a logarithmic relation. The
specific form of surface roughness significantly affects the
power law formulation of the mean velocity distribution in
the overlap region of a turbulent boundary layer. In this
study, two new parameters have been introduced to represent
the effect of roughness on the power law constants. The ex-
perimental data show that the novel roughness parameters E
and ␰ proposed in this study follow the trend of C f in a
similar manner to the roughness function ⌬U ⫹ used to char-
acterize roughness when the overlap region is assumed to be
logarithmic. The current study also shows that E and ␰ de-
pend on the specific form of the roughness geometry. Further
work is required to develop functional relationships between
the proposed roughness parameters and the roughness geom-
etry.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Financial support in terms of a Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council 共NSERC兲 of Canada research
grant to D.J.B. is gratefully acknowledged.
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