Periodically forced, oscillatory fluid flows have been the focus of intense research for decades due to their richness as a nonlinear dynamical system and their relevance to applications in transportation, aeronautics, and energy conversion. Recently, it has been observed that turbulent bluff-body wakes exhibit a subharmonic resonant response when excited with specific spatial symmetries at twice the natural vortex shedding frequency, which is hypothesized to be caused by triadic interactions. The focus of this paper is to provide new physical insight into the dynamics of turbulent oscillator flows, based on improved mechanistic models informed by a comprehensive experimental study of the turbulent wake behind a D-shaped body under periodic forcing. We confirm for the first time the role of resonant triadic interactions in the forced flow by studying the dominant components in the power spectra across multiple excitation frequencies and amplitudes. We then develop an extended Stuart-Landau model for the forced global wake mode, incorporating parametric and non-harmonic forcing. This model captures the system dynamics and reveals the boundaries of multiple synchronization regions. Further, it is possible to identify model coefficients from sparse measurement data, making it applicable to a wide range of turbulent oscillator flows. We believe these generalized synchronization models will be valuable for prediction, control, and understanding of the underlying physics in this ubiquitous class of flows.
Closed-loop control of turbulent flows is a challenging problem with important practical and fundamental implications. We perform closed-loop control of forced, turbulent jets based on a wave-cancellation strategy. The study is motivated by the success of recent studies in applying wave cancellation to control instability waves in transitional boundary layers and free-shear flows. Using a control law obtained through a system-identification technique, we successfully implement wave-cancellation-based, closed-loop control, achieving order-of-magnitude attenuations of velocity fluctuations. Cont…
We show, by direct numerical simulations, that heavy inertial particles (characterized by Stokes number $\St$) in inhomogeneously forced statistically stationary isothermal turbulent flows cluster at the minima of mean-square turbulent velocity. Two turbulent transport processes, turbophoresis and turbulent diffusion together determine the spatial distribution of the particles. If the turbulent diffusivity is assumed to scale with turbulent root mean square velocity, as is the case for homogeneous turbulence, the turbophoretic coefficient can be calculated. Indeed, for the above assumption, th…
We study experimentally temperature fluctuations in stably stratified forced turbulence in air flow. In the experiments with an imposed vertical temperature gradient, the turbulence is produced by two oscillating grids located nearby the side walls of the chamber. Particle Image Velocimetry is used to determine the turbulent and mean velocity fields, and a specially designed temperature probe with sensitive thermocouples is employed to measure the temperature field. We found that the ratio $\big[(\ell_x \nabla_x \bar{T})^2 + (\ell_y \nabla_y \bar{T})^2 + (\ell_z \nabla_z \bar{T})^2\big] / <θ^2…
In order to better understand deviations from equilibrium in turbulent flows, it is meaningful to characterize the dynamics rather than the statistics of turbulence. To this end, the Lyapunov theory provides a useful description of turbulence through the study of the perturbation dynamics. In this work, the Lyapunov spectrum of forced homogeneous isotropic turbulent flows is computed. Using the Lyapunov exponents of a flow at different Reynolds numbers, the scaling of the dimension of the chaotic attractor for a three-dimensional homogeneous isotropic flow (HIT) is obtained for the first time …
In this study, we performed highly resolved large-eddy simulations (LES) to investigate the influence of variable properties on the forced turbulent convection in a channel. The constant heat flux boundary condition permits wall temperature fluctuations and thus induces variations of fluid properties. Since the effect of viscosity on the flow exhibits $Re_τ^{-1}$ scaling, we only considered $Re_τ= 180$ in the present study. Compared to the flow with constant properties, results indicate that the variable properties have trivial effects on the mean velocity and temperature profiles, Reynolds sh…
Rotating fans are the prevalent forced cooling method for heat generating equipment and buildings. As the concentration of atmospheric pollutants has increased, the accumulation of microscale and nanoscale particles on surfaces due to advection-diffusion has led to adverse mechanical, chemical and electrical effects that increase cooling demands and reduce the reliability of electronic equipment. Here, we uncover the mechanisms leading to enhanced deposition of particle matter (PM$_{10}$ and PM$_{2.5}$) on surfaces due to turbulent axial fan flows operating at Reynolds numbers, $Re \sim 10^5$.…
Vortex-induced vibration is a nonlinear phenomenon that can damage buildings or produce energy. Here, the range of synchronization between fluid and structure is an important parameter. Using a coupled van der Pol and linear oscillator system, we derived an analytic, closed-form expression for the synchronization range as a function of fluid shedding frequency, or lock-in as it's also called. Our new definition is an improvement to an earlier synchronization definition as it includes the effect of dissipation; without it hysteresis is missing. The fluid speed range with hysteresis is found to …
In this paper, we report the first evidence of an enhancement of the heat transfer from a heated wire by an external turbulent flow of superfluid helium. We used a standard Pt-Rh hot-wire anemometer and overheat it up to 21 K in a pressurized liquid helium turbulent round jet at temperatures between 1.9 K and 2.12 K. The null-velocity response of the sensor can be satisfactorily modeled by the counter flow mechanism while the extra cooling produced by the forced convection is found to scale similarly as the corresponding extra cooling in classical fluids. We propose a preliminary analysis of t…
We study the propagation of monochromatic surface waves on a turbulent flow. The flow is generated in a layer of liquid metal by an electromagnetic forcing. This forcing creates a quasi two-dimensional (2D) turbulence with strong vertical vorticity. The turbulent flow contains much more energy than the surface waves. In order to focus on the surface wave, the deformations induced by the turbulent flow are removed. This is done by performing a coherent phase averaging. For wavelengths smaller than the forcing lengthscale, we observe a significant increase of the wavelength of the propagating wa…
In this Part 2 we study further experimental properties of two-layer exchange flows in a stratified inclined duct (SID), which are turbulent, strongly-stratified, shear-driven, and continuously-forced. We analyse the same state-of-the-art data sets using the same core shear layer methodology as in Part 1, but we focus here on turbulent energetics and mixing statistics. The detailed analysis of kinetic and scalar energy budgets reveals the specificity and scalings of SID turbulence, while energy spectra provide insight into the current strengths and limitations of our experimental data. The ani…
We study the experimental properties of exchange flows in a stratified inclined duct (SID), which are simultaneously turbulent, strongly stratified by a mean vertical density gradient, driven by a mean vertical shear, and continuously forced by gravity. We focus on the core shear layer away from the duct walls, where these flows are excellent experimentally-realisable approximations of canonical hyperbolic-tangent stratified shear layers, whose forcing allows mean and turbulent properties to reach quasi steady states. We analyse state-of-the-art data sets of the time-resolved density and veloc…
The effects of external forcing on a turbulent, liquid-fuelled, swirl-stabilized gas turbine combustor operating at a pressure of approximately 1 MPa are explored experimentally. In particular, the dynamics and coupling between the hydrodynamics, heat release rate and acoustics are compared for various forcing amplitudes at a fixed forcing frequency $f_f$. The hydrodynamics were characterized via laser Mie scattering from droplets in the fuel spray, while the heat release rate was qualitatively measured using chemiluminescence (CL) emissions in the 312 $\pm$ 12.5 nm wavelength range, both at 1…
Turbulent motions enhance the diffusion of large-scale flows and temperature gradients. Such diffusion is often parameterized by coefficients of turbulent viscosity ($ν_{\rm t}$) and turbulent thermal diffusivity ($χ_{\rm t}$) that are analogous to their microscopic counterparts. We compute the turbulent diffusion coefficients by imposing large-scale velocity and temperature gradients on a turbulent flow and measuring the response of the system. We also confirm our results using experiments where the imposed gradients are allowed to decay. To achieve this, we use weakly compressible three-dime…
A resolvent-based reduced-order representation is used to capture time-averaged second-order statistics in turbulent channel flow. The recently-proposed decomposition of the resolvent operator into two distinct families related to the Orr-Sommerfeld and Squire operators [K. Rosenberg and B. J. McKeon, Efficient representation of exact coherent states of the Navier-Stokes equations using resolvent analysis, Fluid Dynamics Research 51, 011401 (2019)] results in dramatic improvement in the ability to match all components of the energy spectra and the $uv$ cospectrum. The success of the new repres…
The Precessing Vortex Core (PVC) is a coherent structure that can arise in swirling jets from a global instability. In this work, the PVC is investigated under highly turbulent conditions. The goal is to characterize the receptivity of the PVC to active flow control, both theoretically and experimentally. Based on stereoscopic particle image velocimetry and surface pressure measurements, the experimental studies are facilitated by Fourier decomposition and proper orthogonal decomposition. The frequency and the mode shape of the PVC are extracted and a very good agreement with the theoretical p…
(abridged) Context: Turbulent diffusion of large-scale flows and magnetic fields play major roles in many astrophysical systems. Aims: Our goal is to compute turbulent viscosity and magnetic diffusivity, relevant for diffusing large-scale flows and magnetic fields, respectively, and their ratio, the turbulent magnetic Prandtl number, ${\rm Pm}_{\rm t}$, for isotropically forced homogeneous turbulence. Methods: We use simulations of forced turbulence in fully periodic cubes composed of isothermal gas with an imposed large-scale sinusoidal shear flow. Turbulent viscosity is computed either from …
We demonstrate that there is an optimal forcing length scale for low Prandtl number dynamo flows, that can significantly reduce the required energy injection rate. The investigation is based on simulations of the induction equation in a periodic box of size $2πL$. The flows considered are turbulent ABC flows forced at different forcing wavenumbers $k_f$ simulated using a subgrid turbulent model. The critical magnetic Reynolds number $Rm_c^T$ decreases as the forcing wavenumber $k_f$ increases from the smallest allowed $k_{min}=1/L$. At large $k_f$ on the other hand, $Rm_c^T$ increases with the…
We report measurements of global dissipated power within a turbulent flow homogeneously forced at small scale by a new forcing technique. The forcing is random in both time and space within the fluid by using magnetic particles in an alternating magnetic field. By measuring the growth rate of the fluid temperature, we show how the dissipated power is governed by the external control parameters (magnetic field, and number N of particles). We experimentally found that the mean dissipated power scales linearly with these parameters, as expected from the magnetic injected power scalings. These exp…
Turbulent flow past an equilateral triangular cylinder with splitter plate inserted downstream is numerically tested for different gap ratios (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2) and plate dimensions (0, 1, 1.5) on the flow field and heat transfer characteristics. Unsteady flow simulations are carried out at Re=22,000 in a finite volume based collocated framework, on a two-dimensional unstructured mesh. Reynolds averaged momentum and energy equations are solved in conjunction with the standard $κ$-$ε$ model. In this study, cylinder and control plate are subjected to constant wall temperature. It is observed th…
In this paper, we present results from an experimental study into turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection forced externally by periodically modulated unidirectional rotation rates. We find that the azimuthal rotation velocity $\dotθ$(t) and thermal amplitude $δ$(t) of the large-scale circulation (LSC) are modulated by the forcing, exhibiting a variety of dynamics including increasing phase delays and a resonant peak in the amplitude of $\dotθ$(t). We also focus on the influence of modulated rotation rates on the frequency of occurrence $η$ of stochastic cessation/reorientation events, and on the …
We conducted direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of turbulent flow over three-dimensional sinusoidal roughness in a channel. A passive scalar is present in the flow with Prandtl number $Pr=0.7$, to study heat transfer by forced convection over this rough surface. The minimal channel is used to circumvent the high cost of simulating high Reynolds number flows, which enables a range of rough surfaces to be efficiently simulated. The near-wall temperature profile in the minimal channel agrees well with that of the conventional full-span channel, indicating it can be readily used for heat-transfer…
Autoencoders and generative neural network models have recently gained popularity in fluid mechanics due to their spontaneity and low processing time instead of high fidelity CFD simulations. Auto encoders are used as model order reduction tools in applications of fluid mechanics by compressing input high-dimensional data using an encoder to map the input space into a lower-dimensional latent space. Whereas, generative models such as Variational Auto-encoders (VAEs) and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are proving to be effective in generating solutions to chaotic models with high 'rando…
Hydrodynamic modes in the turbulent mixing layer over a cavity can constructively interact with the acoustic modes of that cavity and lead to aeroacoustic instabilities. The resulting limit cycles can cause undesired structural vibrations or noise pollution in many industrial applications. To further the predictive understanding of this phenomenon, we propose two physics-based models which describe the nonlinear aeroacoustic response of a side branch aperture under harmonic forcing with variable acoustic pressure forcing amplitude pa. One model is based on Howe's classic vortex sheet formulati…
We report an experimental investigation on the influence of an external magnetic field on forced 3D turbulence of liquid gallium in a closed vessel. We observe an exponential damping of the turbulent velocity fluctuations as a function of the interaction parameter N (ratio of Lorentz force over inertial terms of the Navier-Stokes equation). The flow structures develop some anisotropy but do not become bidimensional. From a dynamical viewpoint, the damping first occurs homogeneously over the whole spectrum of frequencies. For larger values of N, a very strong additional damping occurs at the hi…
With the increased application of large eddy simulation techniques, the generation of realistic turbulence at inflow boundaries is crucial for the accuracy of a simulation. The Control Forced Concurrent Precursor Method (CFCPM) proposed in this work combines an existing concurrent precursor method and a mean flow forcing method with a new extension of the controlled forcing method to impose turbulent inflow boundary conditions primarily, although not exclusively, for domains that require periodic boundary conditions. Turbulent inflow boundary conditions are imposed through a region of body for…
Transonic buffet is commonly associated with self-sustained flow unsteadiness involving shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction over aerofoils and wings. The phenomenon has been classified as either laminar or turbulent based on the state of the boundary layer immediately upstream of the shock foot and distinct mechanisms for the two types have been suggested. The turbulent case is known to be associated with a global linear instability. Herein, large-eddy simulations are used for the first time to make direct comparisons of the two types by examining free- and forced-transition conditions. Corr…
Thermoacoustic instabilities observed in turbulent combustion systems have disastrous consequences and are notoriously challenging to model, predict and control. Here, we introduce a mean-field model of thermoacoustic transitions, where the nonlinear flame response is modeled as the amplitude weighted response of an ensemble of phase oscillators constrained to collectively evolve at the rhythm of acoustic fluctuations. Starting from the acoustic wave equation coupled with the phase oscillators, we derive the evolution equations for the amplitude and phase and obtain the limit cycle solution. W…
Direct numerical simulation (DNS) is very accurate however, the computational cost increases significantly with the increase in Reynolds number. On the other hand, we have the Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) method for simulating turbulent flows, which needs less computational power. Turbulence models based on linear eddy viscosity models (LEVM) in the RANS method, which use a linear stress-strain rate relationship for modelling the Reynolds stress tensor do not perform well for complex flows \cite{shih1995new} . In this work, we intend to study the performance of non linear eddy viscos…
Solutions of the forced Navier-Stokes equation have been conjectured to thermalize at scales larger than the forcing scale, similar to an absolute equilibrium obtained for the spectrally-truncated Euler equation. Using direct numeric simulations of Taylor-Green flows and general-periodic helical flows, we present results on the probability density function, energy spectrum, auto-correlation function and correlation time that compare the two systems. In the case of highly helical flows, we derive an analytic expression describing the correlation time for the absolute equilibrium of helical flow…
In a forced three-dimensional turbulent flow the scales larger than the forcing scale have been conjectured to reach a thermal equilibrium state forming a $k^2$ energy spectrum. In this work we examine the properties of these large scales in turbulent flows with the use of numerical simulations. We show that the choice of forcing can strongly affect the behavior of the large scales. A spectrally-dense forcing (a forcing that acts on {\it all modes} inside a finite-width spherical shell) with long correlation times may lead to strong deviations from the $k^2$ energy spectrum, while a spectrally…
Resolvent analysis is a powerful tool for modeling and analyzing turbulent flows and in particular provides an approximation of coherent flow structures. Despite recent algorithmic advances, computing resolvent modes for flows with more than one inhomogeneous spatial coordinate remains computationally expensive. In this two-part paper, we show how efficient and accurate approximations of resolvent modes can be obtained using a well-posed spatial marching method for flows that contain a slowly varying direction. In this first part of the paper, we derive a well-posed and convergent one-way equa…
Conflict between formation of a cyclonic vortex and isotropization in forced homogeneous rotating turbulence is numerically investigated. It is well known that a large rotation rate of the system induces columnar vortices to result in quasi-two-dimensional (Q2D) flow, while a small rotation rate allows turbulence to be three-dimensional (3D). It is found that the transition from the Q2D turbulent flow to the 3D turbulent flow and the reverse transition occur at different values of the rotation rates. At the intermediate rotation rates, bistability of these two statistically steady states is ob…
Super-resolution is an innovative technique that upscales the resolution of an image or a video and thus enables us to reconstruct high-fidelity images from low-resolution data. This study performs super-resolution analysis on turbulent flow fields spatially and temporally using various state-of-the-art machine learning techniques like ESPCN, ESRGAN and TecoGAN to reconstruct high-resolution flow fields from low-resolution flow field data, especially keeping in mind the need for low resource consumption and rapid results production/verification. The dataset used for this study is extracted fro…
The role of turbulence in current generation and self-excitation of magnetic fields has been studied in the geometry of a mechanically driven, spherical dynamo experiment, using a three dimensional numerical computation. A simple impeller model drives a flow which can generate a growing magnetic field, depending upon the magnetic Reynolds number, Rm, and the fluid Reynolds number. When the flow is laminar, the dynamo transition is governed by a simple threshold in Rm, above which a growing magnetic eigenmode is observed. The eigenmode is primarily a dipole field tranverse to axis of symmetry o…
This work presents numerical results on the transport of heat and chemical species by shear-induced turbulence in strongly stratified but thermally diffusive environments. The shear instabilities driven in this regime are sometimes called "secular" shear instabilities, and can take place even when the gradient Richardson number of the flow (the square of the ratio of the buoyancy frequency to the shearing rate) is large, provided the Péclet number (the ratio of the thermal diffusion timescale to the turnover timescale of the turbulent eddies) is small. We have identified a set of simple criter…
Turbulent mixed convection in channel flows with heterogeneous surfaces is studied using direct numerical simulations. The relative importance between buoyancy and shear effects, characterized by the bulk Richardson number $Ri_b$, is varied in order to cover the flow regimes of forced, mixed and natural convection, which are associated with different large-scale flow organization. The heterogeneous surface consists of streamwise-aligned ridges, which are known to induce secondary motion in case of forced convection. The large-scale streamwise rolls emerging under smooth-wall mixed convection c…
We present a model-based, output-only parameter identification method for self-sustained oscillators forced by dynamic noise, which we illustrate experimentally with an aeroacoustic setup: a turbulent jet impinging a beer bottle and producing a whistling tone in a finite range of jet angles and velocities. Given a low-order model of the system, the identification analyzes stationary time series of a single observable: acoustic pressure fluctuations in the bottle. As this observable exhibits the characteristics of weakly non-linear self-oscillations, we choose as a minimal model the Van der Pol…
We study, by means of extensive direct numerical simulations, the turbulent flow produced by a two-dimensional cellular forcing in a cubic box with periodic boundary conditions. In spite of the strong anisotropy of the forcing, we find that turbulence recovers almost complete isotropy at small scales. Nonetheless, the signature of the forcing remains in the mean flow (averaged over time and over the homogeneous direction) and this allows to introduce a friction factor, whose dependence on the Reynolds number is investigated. We further find that the flow is characterized by large temporal fluc…
We carry out direct numerical simulation (DNS) of flow in a turbulent square duct by focusing on heat transfer effects, considering the case of unit Prandtl number. Reynolds numbers up to $Re_τ\approx 2000$ are considered which are much higher than in previous studies, and which yield clear scale separation between inner- and outer-layer dynamics. Close similarity between the behavior of the temperature and the streamwise velocity fields is confirmed as in previous studies related to plane channels and pipes. Just like the mean velocity, the mean temperature is found to exhibit logarithmic lay…
We demonstrate that a separation of the velocity field in large and small scales according to a streamwise Fourier decomposition identifies subspaces with stable Lyapunov exponents and allows the dynamics to exhibit properties of an inertial manifold, such as the synchronization of the small scales in simulations sharing the same large scales or equivalently the decay of all small scale flow states to the state uniquely determined from the large scale flow. This behaviour occurs for deviations with streamwise wavelength smaller than 130 wall units which was shown in earlier studies to correspo…
Aims: We determine the components of the $Λ$-effect tensor that quantifies the contributions to the turbulent momentum transport even for uniform rotation. Methods: Three-dimensional numerical simulations are used to study turbulent transport in triply periodic cubes under the influence of rotation and anisotropic forcing. Comparison is made with analytical results obtained via the so-called minimal tau-approximation. Results: In the case where the turbulence intensity in the vertical direction dominates, the vertical stress is always negative. This situation is expected to occur in stellar co…
