Direct numerical simulation of turbulent open channel flow: Streamwise turbulence intensity scaling and its relation to large-scale coherent motions

We conducted direct numerical simulations of turbulent open channel flow (OCF) and closed channel flow (CCF) of friction Reynolds numbers up to ${\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}}_{\tau }\approx 900$ in large computational domains up to $L_x\times L_z=12\pi h\times 4\pi h$ to analyse the Reynolds number scaling of turbulence intensities. Unlike CCF, our data suggests that the streamwise turbulence intensity in OCF scales with the bulk velocity for ${\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}}_{\tau }\gtrsim 400$. The additional streamwise kinetic energy in OCF with respect to CCF is provided by larger and more intense very-large-scale motions in the former type of flow. Therefore, compared to CCF, larger computational domains of $L_x\times L_z=12\pi h\times 4\pi h$ are required to faithfully capture very-large-scale motions in OCF – and observe the reported scaling. OCF and CCF turbulence statistics data sets are available at https://doi.org/10.4121/88678f02-2a34-4452-8534-6361fc34d06b .