No Arabic abstract
Direct Numerical Simulations of turbulent channel flows at friction Reynolds number 550, 1000, 1500, are used to analyse the turbulent production, transfer and dissipation mechanisms in the compound space of scales and wall-distances by means of the Kolmogorov equation generalized to inhomogeneous anisotropic flows. Two distinct peaks of scale-energy source are identified. The first stronger one belongs to the near-wall cycle. Its location in the space of scales and physical space is found to scale in viscous units while its intensity grows slowly with $Re$, indicating a near-wall modulation. The second source peak is found further away from the wall in the putative overlap layer and it is separated from the near-wall source by a layer of significant scale-energy sink. The dynamics of the second outer source appears to be strongly dependent on the Reynolds number. The detailed scale-by-scale analysis of this source highlights well-defined features that are used to make the properties of the outer turbulent source independent of Reynolds number and wall-distance by rescaling the problem. Overall, the present results suggest a strong connection of the observed outer scale-energy source with the presence of an outer region of turbulence production whose mechanisms are well separated from the near-wall region and whose statistical features agree with the hypothesis of an overlap layer dominated by attached eddies. Inner-outer interactions between the near-wall and outer source region in terms of scale-energy fluxes are also analysed. It is conjectured that the near-wall modulation of the statistics at increasing Reynolds number can be related to a confinement of the near-wall turbulence production due to the presence of increasingly large production scales in the outer scale-energy source region.
We analyze analytically and numerically the scale invariant stationary solution to the internal wave kinetic equation. Our analysis of the resonant energy transfers shows that the leading order contributions are given (i) by triads with extreme scale separation and (ii) by triads of waves that are quasi-colinear in the horizontal plane. The contributions from other types of triads is found to be subleading. We use the modified scale invariant limit of the Garrett and Munk spectrum of internal waves to calculate the magnitude of the energy flux towards high wave numbers in both the vertical and the horizontal directions. Our results compare favorably with the finescale parametrization of ocean mixing that was proposed in [Polzin et al. (1995)].
A new velocity scale is derived that yields a Reynolds number independent profile for the streamwise turbulent fluctuations in the near-wall region of wall bounded flows for $y^+<25$. The scaling demonstrates the important role played by the wall shear stress fluctuations and how the large eddies determine the Reynolds number dependence of the near-wall turbulence distribution.
In this paper we present a novel hydrodynamic experiment using liquid $^4$He. The flow is forced inertially by a canonical oscillating grid using either its normal (He~I) or superfluid (He~II) phase, generating a statistically stationary turbulence. We characterise the turbulent properties of the flow using 2D Lagrangian Particle tracking on hollow glass micro-spheres. As expected for tracer particles, the Vorono{i} tessellation on particle positions does not show a significant departure from a random Poisson process neither in He~I nor He~II phase. Particles positions are tracked with high temporal resolution, allowing to resolve velocity fluctuations at integral and inertial scales while properly assessing the noise contribution. Additionally, we differentiate the particles positions (by convolution with Gaussian kernels) in order to access small scale quantities like acceleration. Using these measured quantities and the formalism of classical Homogeneous Isotropic Turbulence (HIT) to perform an energy budget across scales we extract the energy injection rate at the large scale, the energy flux cascading through inertial scales, down to small scales at which it is dissipated. We found that in such inertially driven turbulence, regardless of the normal or superfluid state of the fluid, estimates of energy at the different scales are compatible with each other and consistent with oscillating grid turbulence results reported for normal fluids in the literature. The largest discrepancy shows up at small scales where the signal to noise ratio is harder to control and where the 2D measurement is contaminated by the 3D nature of the flow. This motivates to focus future experimental projects towards small scales, low noise and 3D measurements.
Despite the nonlinear nature of turbulence, there is evidence that part of the energy-transfer mechanisms sustaining wall turbulence can be ascribed to linear processes. The different scenarios stem from linear stability theory and comprise exponential instabilities, neutral modes, transient growth from non-normal operators, and parametric instabilities from temporal mean-flow variations, among others. These mechanisms, each potentially capable of leading to the observed turbulence structure, are rooted in theoretical and conceptual arguments. Whether the flow follows any or a combination of them remains elusive. Here, we evaluate the linear mechanisms responsible for the energy transfer from the streamwise-averaged mean-flow ($bf U$) to the fluctuating velocities ($bf u$). We use cause-and-effect analysis based on interventions. This is achieved by direct numerical simulation of turbulent channel flows at low Reynolds number, in which the energy transfer from $bf U$ to $bf u$ is constrained to preclude a targeted linear mechanism. We show that transient growth is sufficient for sustaining realistic wall turbulence. Self-sustaining turbulence persists when exponential instabilities, neutral modes, and parametric instabilities of the mean flow are suppressed. We further show that a key component of transient growth is the Orr/push-over mechanism induced by spanwise variations of the base flow. Finally, we demonstrate that an ensemble of simulations with various frozen-in-time $bf U$ arranged so that only transient growth is active, can faithfully represent the energy transfer from $bf U$ to $bf u$ as in realistic turbulence. Our approach provides direct cause-and-effect evaluation of the linear energy-injection mechanisms from $bf U$ to $bf u$ in the fully nonlinear system and simplifies the conceptual model of self-sustaining wall turbulence.
Simulations of elastoinertial turbulence (EIT) of a polymer solution at low Reynolds number are shown to display localized polymer stretch fluctuations. These are very similar to structures arising from linear stability (Tollmien-Schlichting (TS) modes) and resolvent analyses: i.e., critical-layer structures localized where the mean fluid velocity equals the wavespeed. Computation of self-sustained nonlinear TS waves reveals that the critical layer exhibits stagnation points that generate sheets of large polymer stretch. These kinematics may be the genesis of similar structures in EIT.