Numerical and experimental investigations of fluid-surface interaction

Fluid-structure interactions play a central role in an overwhelming number of physical phenomena. All fluid dynamic students are familiar with the common assumption of a "smooth boundary". While this assumption often is enough to provide a high level understanding of the dynamics and physics at hand in practice this is not true. Much of the detail and the unique phenomena can be traced back to surface properties that deviate from this elementary assumption. In this work we investigate three problems all motivated by the existence of non-smooth surfaces. The first paper considers how inhomogeneous surfaces can generate a lift force for lubricated contacts. This work showcases how subtle changes to surface texture or chemistry modeled by a slip length can invoke non-trivial forces. These forces result in striking particle trajectories not possible in the presence of a smooth no-slip wall. The next work focuses on porous surfaces. Often the geometry of surfaces in nature and industry are complex covering a wide range of length scales. Resolving all the scales of motion arising from fluid interaction with such surfaces are computationally expensive. Effective equations are often applied to reduce the cost of such simulations. The Brinkman equation is one common model choice for free-fluid and porous surface interface. Despite the common application of the Brinkman equation, fundamental questions about what the effective viscosity should be remain open. We compare pore-scale Stokes flow solutions to the Brinkman model for several porous surfaces. This study provides a scaling for the effective viscosity as well as error quantification of the Brinkman model. Lastly, we investigate how porous surfaces modify a turbulent boundary layer. Streamwise preferential porous surfaces have recently been suggested as a surface modification that has the potential to reduce drag. We compare particle image velocimetry measurements with direct numerical simulations focusing on the near wall features that are modified from the canonical smooth wall case. We present some preliminary turbulent statistics and flow visualizations in the current report