We investigate non-equilibrium turbulence where the non-dimensionalised dissipation coefficient $C_{varepsilon}$ scales as $C_{varepsilon} sim Re_{M}^{m}/Re_{ell}^{n}$ with $mapprox 1 approx n$ ($Re_M$ and $Re_{ell}$ are global/inlet and local Reynol
ds numbers respectively) by measuring the downstream evolution of the scale-by-scale energy transfer, dissipation, advection, production and transport in the lee of a square-mesh grid and compare with a region of equilibrium turbulence (i.e. where $C_{varepsilon}approx mathrm{constant}$). These are the main terms of the inhomogeneous, anisotropic version of the von K{a}rm{a}n-Howarth-Monin equation. It is shown in the grid-generated turbulence studied here that, even in the presence of non-negligible turbulence production and transport, production and transport are large-scale phenomena that do not contribute to the scale-by-scale balance for scales smaller than about a third of the integral-length scale, $ell$, and therefore do not affect the energy transfer to the small-scales. In both the non-equilibrium and the equilibrium decay regions, the peak of the scale-by-scale energy transfer scales as $(overline{u^2})^{3/2}/ell$ ($overline{u^2}$ is the variance of the longitudinal fluctuating velocity). In the non-equilibrium case this scaling implies an imbalance between the energy transfer to the small scales and the dissipation. This imbalance is reflected on the small-scale advection which becomes larger in proportion to the maximum energy transfer as the turbulence decays whereas it stays proportionally constant in the further downstream equilibrium region where $C_{varepsilon} approx mathrm{constant}$ even though $Re_{ell}$ is lower.
The previously reported non-equilibrium dissipation law is investigated in turbulent flows generated by various regular and fractal square grids. The flows are documented in terms of various turbulent profiles which reveal their differences. In spite
of significant inhomogeneity and anisotropy differences, the new non-equilibrium dissipation law is observed in all these flows. Various transverse and longitudinal integral scales are measured and used to define the dissipation coefficient $C_{varepsilon}$. It is found that the new non-equilibrium dissipation law is not an artefact of a particular choice of the integral scale and that the usual equilibrium dissipation law can actually coexist with the non-equilibrium law in different regions of the same flow.
