Basal Pressure Variations Induced by a Turbulent Flow Over a Wavy Surface

Turbulent flows over wavy surfaces give rise to the formation of ripples, dunes and other natural bedforms. To predict how much sediment these transport, research has focused mainly on basal shear stress, which peaks upstream highest topography, largely ignored corresponding pressure variations. In this article, we reanalyze old literature data, as well more recent wind tunnel results, shed a new light induced by turbulent flow sinusoidal surface. While Bernoulli effect increases velocity above crests reduces it in troughs, exhibits variations that lag behind topography. We extract in-phase in-quadrature components from streamwise profiles compare them hydrodynamic predictions calibrated stress data.