Recent developments in scaling of wall-bounded flows

Proper scaling of a fluid flow permits convenient, dimensionless representation of experimental data, prediction of one flow based on a similar one, and extrapolation of low-Reynolds-number, laboratory-scale experiments to field conditions. This is a particularly powerful technique for turbulent flows where analytical solutions derived from first principles are not possible. We review in the present paper the topical development in scaling the canonical turbulent boundary layer and pipe and channel flows. Additional to utilizing some of the most comprehensive and high-quality databases available to date, the article focuses on contemporary advances in analytical and asymptotic approaches to determine the mean-velocity profile as well as to scale higher-order statistics. The current debate concerning the mean-velocity profile of turbulent wall-bounded flows has ruled out neither a logarithmic nor power law behavior. Furthermore, a Reynolds number dependence of the mean-velocity profile has not been excluded either. Clearly, a more complex functional form is needed to describe the profile. The present results can be utilized to extrapolate the available low-Reynolds-number physical and numerical data to the more practically important high-Reynolds-number field conditions. Knowledge of the proper scaling of the canonical cases can also be useful to non-canonical wall-bounded flows as well as to calibrate turbulence models and flow sensors in the vicinity of walls.