Reynolds Number Dependency of Wall-Bounded Turbulence Over a Surface Partially Covered by Barnacle Clusters

Abstract The settlement of barnacles on a ship hull is a common form of marine biofouling. In this study, the Reynolds number dependency of turbulent flow over a surface partially covered by barnacle clusters is investigated using direct numerical simulations of turbulent channel flow at friction Reynolds numbers ranging from 180 to 720. Mean flow, Reynolds and dispersive stress statistics are evaluated and compared to the corresponding results for a generic irregular rough surface with a Gaussian height distribution. For the barnacle surface, distinctive features emerge in the velocity statistics due to the interplay between the barnacle clusters and the large, connected smooth-wall sections surrounding them. This aspect is further investigated by applying a rough-smooth decomposition to the local time-averaged flow statistics for the barnacle surface. Using this decomposition, the partial recovery of smooth-wall behaviour over the smooth sections of the barnacle surface can be observed in the Reynolds stress statistics with the streamwise Reynolds stresses exhibiting a similar behaviour as previously found for boundary layers over surfaces with a rough to smooth transition.