Practically all flows are turbulent in nature and contain some kind of irregularly-shaped particles, e.g. dirt, pollen, or life forms such as bacteria or insects. The effect of the particles on such flows and vice-versa are highly non-trivial and are not completely understood, particularly when the particles are finite-sized. Here we report an experimental study of millimetric fibers in a strongly sheared turbulent flow. We find that the fibers show a preferred orientation of $-0.38pi pm 0.05pi$ ($-68 pm 9^circ$) with respect to the mean flow direction in high-Reynolds number Taylor-Couette turbulence, for all studied Reynolds numbers, fiber concentrations, and locations. Despite the finite-size of the anisotropic particles, we can explain the preferential alignment by using Jeffereys equation, which provides evidence of the benefit of a simplified point-particle approach. Furthermore, the fiber angular velocity is strongly intermittent, again indicative of point-particle-like behavior in turbulence. Thus large anisotropic particles still can retain signatures of the local flow despite classical spatial and temporal filtering effects.
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