A physical picture of the mechanism of turbulent heat transfer from the wall

The present work investigates the correlation between the velocity and the temperature field in wall turbulence using direct numerical simulation of turbulent channel flow and plane Couette flow in conjunction with a Lagrangian method. Characteristic length scales for heat transfer are calculated for fluids with Prandtl numbers between 0.1 and 100. Structures of larger scales are found to contribute to the transport of heat as the distance from the wall increases. Turbulent Prandtl numbers are then calculated, showing that the turbulent Prandtl number is a function of the distance from the wall, but it does not depend on the fluid Prandtl number for high Prandtl numbers.