Faculty Mentor: Eric Pardyjak (Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah)

With a motivation of providing more insight into the Reynolds stress terms of the Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equations (RANS) to increase accuracy in turbulent flow simulations. Analyzing an atmospheric turbulence dataset from the IPAQS19 campaign through the lens of a velocity vorticity relationship has challenged previous assumptions of the Reynolds stresses in wall bounded turbulent flows. By filtering to specific wind events, for example a northernly wind with high mechanical forcing, with conditions like conservation of mass met, relationships between the vorticity and Reynolds stresses could be made. Previous assumptions have stated vorticity is related to rotational parts of the shear Reynolds stresses however in our cases vorticity terms exclusively correlate with the normal Reynolds stresses or in other words the gradient of the turbulent kinetic energy. These findings draw the conclusion that all Reynolds stress terms have significance when modelling a turbulent flow using the RANS equations.