A new computational framework for the simulation of turbulent flow through complex objects and along irregular boundaries is presented. This is motivated by the application of metal foams in compact heat-transfer devices, or as catalyst substrates in process-engineering. The flow-consequences of such complicated objects are incorporated by adding explicit multiscale forcing to the Navier-Stokes equations. The forcing represents the simultaneous agitation of a wide spectrum of length-scales when flow passes through the complex object. It is found that a considerable modulation of the traditional energy cascading can be introduced with a specific forcing strategy. In spectral space, forcing yields strongly localized deviations from the common Kolmogorov scaling law, directly associated with the explicitly forced scales. In addition, the accumulated effect of forcing induces a significant non-local alteration of the kinetic energy including the spectrum for the large scales. Consequently, a manipulation of turbulent flow can be achieved over an extended range, well beyond the directly forced scales. The turbulent mixing of a passive scalar field is also investigated, in order to quantify the physical-space modifications of transport processes in multiscale forced turbulence. The surface-area and wrinkling of level-sets of the scalar field are monitored as measures of the influence of explicit forcing on the local and global mixing efficiency.
Recent numerical results show that if a scalar is mixed by periodically forced turbulence, the average mixing rate is directly affected for forcing frequencies small compared to the integral turbulence frequency. We elucidate this by an analytical study using simple turbulence models for spectral transfer. Adding a large amplitude modulation to the forcing of the velocity field enhances the energy transfer and simultaneously diminishes the scalar transfer. Adding a modulation to a random stirring protocol will thus negatively influence the mixing rate. We further derive the asymptotic behaviou…
Direct numerical simulations are carried out to investigate scalar mixing in an isotropic turbulent flow with a time-periodic forcing. For high amplitudes of the modulation, it is shown that the average mixing rate is negatively affected at low frequencies. In this limit the mixing time scale increases, whereas the typical velocity timescale decreases. We further determine the frequency response of scalar statistics to a periodic scalar-forcing.
Recent analytical models concerning the limiting efficiency of marine hydrokinetic (MHK) turbines are reviewed with an emphasis on the significance of blockages (of local as well as global flow passages) and wake mixing. Also discussed is the efficiency of power generation from fully developed turbulent open channel flows. These issues are primarily concerned with the design/optimization of tidal turbine arrays; however, some of them are relevant to wind turbines as well.
The compressibility and heat of reaction influence on the scalar mixing in decaying isotropic turbulence and homogeneous shear flow are examined via data generated by direct numerical simulations (DNS). The reaction is modeled as one-step, exothermic, irreversible and Arrhenius type. For the shear flow simulations, the scalar dissipation rate, as well as the time scale ratio of mechanical to scalar dissipation, are affected by compressibility and reaction. This effect is explained by considering the transport equation for the normalized mixture fraction gradient variance and the relative orien…
Electrostatic turbulence in weakly collisional, magnetized plasma can be interpreted as a cascade of entropy in phase space, which is proposed as a universal mechanism for dissipation of energy in magnetized plasma turbulence. When the nonlinear decorrelation time at the scale of the thermal Larmor radius is shorter than the collision time, a broad spectrum of fluctuations at sub-Larmor scales is numerically found in velocity and position space, with theoretically predicted scalings. The results are important because they identify what is probably a universal Kolmogorov-like regime for kinetic…
Current global ocean models rely on ad-hoc parameterizations of diapycnal mixing, in which the efficiency of mixing is globally assumed to be fixed at $20\%$, despite increasing evidence that this assumption is questionable. As an ansatz for small-scale ocean turbulence, we may focus on stratified shear flows susceptible to either Kelvin-Helmholtz (KHI) or Holmboe wave (HWI) instability. Recently, an unprecedented volume of data has been generated through direct numerical simulation (DNS) of these flows. In this paper, we describe the application of deep learning methods to the discovery of a …
Wave Particle Turbulent Simulation of Spatially Developing Round Jets Using a Non Equilibrium Transport Model with a Mixing Length Characteristic Time Closure
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学）；Shenzhen Research Institute, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学深圳研究院）
The paper presents a theory of shear-generated turbulence at asymptotically high Reynolds numbers. It is based on an ensemble of dipole vortex tubes taken as quasi-particles and realized in form of rings, hairpins or filament couples of potentially finite length. In a not necesserily planar cross sectional area through a vortex tangle, taken locally orthogonal through each individual tube, the dipoles are moving with the classical dipole velocity. The vortex radius is directly related with Prandtl's classical mixing length. The quasi-particles perform dipol chaos which reminds of molecular cha…
This work describes an experimental investigation on the mixing induced by a swarm of high Reynolds number air bubbles rising through a nearly homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flow. The gas volume fraction $α$ and the velocity fluctuations $u'_0$ of the carrier flow before bubble injection are varied, respectively, in the ranges $0\leq α\leq 0.93\%$ and 2.3 cm/s $\leq u'_0 \leq 5.5$ cm/s, resulting in a variation of the bubblance parameter $b$ in the range [0, 1.3] ($b = \frac{V_r^2 α}{{u'}_0^2}$, where $V_r$ is the relative rising velocity). Mixing in the horizontal direction can be modell…
Benchmarking Turbulence Models to Represent Cloud-Edge Mixing
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München（路德维希-马克西米利安慕尼黑大学）；Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology（印度热带气象研究所）；Centre for Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay（印度理工学院孟买分校气候研究中心）；Gothenburg University（哥德堡大学）；Chalmers University of Technology（查尔姆斯理工大学）
The Lagrangian view of passive scalar turbulence has recently produced interesting results and interpretations. Innovations in theory, experiments, simulations and data analysis of Lagrangian turbulence are reviewed here in brief. Part of the review is closely related to the so-called Kraichnan model for the advection of the passive scalar in synthetic turbulence. Possible implications for a better understanding of the passive scalar mixing in Navier-Stokes turbulence are also discussed.
The ultimate goal of a sound theory of turbulence in fluids is to close in a rational way the Reynolds equations, namely to express the tensor of turbulent stress as a function of the time average of the velocity field. Based on the idea that dissipation in fully developed turbulence is by singular events resulting from an evolution described by the Euler equations, it has been recently observed that the closure problem is strongly restricted, and that it implies that the turbulent stress is a non local function in space of the average velocity field, a kind of extension of classical Boussines…
We report and discuss case study simulations of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in the Boussinesq, incompressible regime developed to turbulence. Our main focus is on a statistical analysis of density and velocity fluctuations inside of the already developed and growing in size mixing zone. Novel observations reported in the manuscript concern self-similarity of the velocity and density fluctuations spectra inside of the mixing zone snapshot, independence of the spectra of the horizontal slice level, and universality showing itself in a virtual independence of the internal structure of the mix…
Three-dimensional miscible Rayleigh--Taylor (RT) turbulence at small Atwood number and at Prandtl number one is investigated by means of high resolution direct numerical simulations of the Boussinesq equations. RT turbulence is a paradigmatic time-dependent turbulent system in which the integral scale grows in time following the evolution of the mixing region. In order to fully characterize the statistical properties of the flow, both temporal and spatial behavior of relevant statistical indicators have been analyzed. Scaling of both global quantities ({\it e.g.}, Rayleigh, Nusselt and Reynold…
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…
Small-scale effects of turbulent mixing are numerically investigated by applying the map-based, stochastic, one-dimensional turbulence (ODT) model to confined planar jets. The model validation is carried out for the momentum transport by comparing ODT results to available reference data for the bulk Reynolds numbers $Re=20\,000$ and $40\,000$. Various pointwise statistical quantities are computed and compared to the available reference data. We show that these quantities can be captured well, or at least to a reasonable extent, by the stand-alone model formulation and for fixed model parameter…
Turbulent mixing layers in nature are often characterized by the presence of a mean shear and an unstable buoyancy gradient between two streams of different velocity. Depending on the relative strength of shear versus buoyancy, either the former or the latter may dominate the turbulence and mixing between the two streams. In this paper, we present a phenomenological theory that leads to the identification of two distinct turbulent regimes: an early regime, dominated by the mean shear, and a later regime dominated by the buoyancy. The main theoretical result consists of the identification of a …
We extend the generalized Langevin model, originally developed for the Lagrangian fluid particle velocity in constant-density shear-driven turbulence, to variable-density (VD) pressure-gradient-driven flows. VD effects due to non-uniform mass concentrations (e.g. mixing of different species) are considered. In the extended model large density fluctuations leading to large differential fluid accelerations are accounted for. This is an essential ingredient to represent the strong coupling between the density and velocity fields in VD hydrodynamics driven by active scalar mixing. The small scale …
Turbulence models attempt to account for unresolved dynamics and diffusion in hydrodynamical simulations. We develop a common framework for two-equation Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models, and we implement six models in the Athena code. We verify each implementation with the standard subsonic mixing layer, although the level of agreement depends on the definition of the mixing layer width. We then test the validity of each model into the supersonic regime, showing that compressibility corrections can improve agreement with experiment. For models with buoyancy effects, we …
Turbulent mixing is studied in the Lagrangian framework with an approach based on the complex network formalism. We consider the motion of passive, noninertial particles inside a turbulent channel simulated at $Re_τ = 950$. The time-dependent network is built to evaluate the transfer of tracers between thin wall-parallel layers which partition the channel in the wall-normal direction. By doing so, we are able to assess the spatial and temporal complexities arising from turbulence dynamics and their influence on the mixing process. This approach highlights the effects of small-scale features of…
We present a model for the scaling of mixing in weakly rotating stratified flows characterized by their Rossby, Froude and Reynolds numbers Ro, Fr, Re. It is based on quasi-equipartition between kinetic and potential modes, sub-dominant vertical velocity and lessening of the energy transfer to small scales as measured by the ratio rE of kinetic energy dissipation to its dimensional expression. We determine their domains of validity for a numerical study of the unforced Boussinesq equations mostly on grids of 10243 points, with Ro/Fr> 2.5 and with 1600< Re<1.9x104; the Prandtl number is one, in…
Based on recent developments in physics-informed deep learning and deep hidden physics models, we put forth a framework for discovering turbulence models from scattered and potentially noisy spatio-temporal measurements of the probability density function (PDF). The models are for the conditional expected diffusion and the conditional expected dissipation of a Fickian scalar described by its transported single-point PDF equation. The discovered model are appraised against exact solution derived by the amplitude mapping closure (AMC)/ Johnsohn-Edgeworth translation (JET) model of binary scalar …
We investigate the large-scale intermittency of vertical velocity and temperature, and the mixing properties of stably stratified turbulent flows using both Lagrangian and Eulerian fields from direct numerical simulations, in a parameter space relevant for the atmosphere and the oceans. Over a range of Froude numbers of geophysical interest ($\approx 0.05-0.3$) we observe very large fluctuations of the vertical components of the velocity and the potential temperature, localized in space and time, with a sharp transition leading to non-Gaussian wings of the probability distribution functions. T…
An increasing number of numerical simulations and experiments describing the turbulent spectrum of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) mixing layers came to light over the past few years. Results reported in recent studies allow to rule out a turbulence {\it à la Kolmogorov} as a mechanism acting on a self similar RT turbulent mixing layer. A different mechanism is presented, which complies with both numerical and experimental results and relates RT flow to other buoyant flows.
Time-Symmetry of Lagrangian Coherent Structures in Active Turbulence
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur（坎普尔印度理工学院）；International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research（塔塔基础科学研究所国际理论科学中心）；Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad（海得拉巴印度理工学院）
Traditionally, turbulence energetics is characterized by turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and modelled using solely the TKE budget equation. In stable stratification, TKE is generated by the velocity shear and expended through viscous dissipation and work against buoyancy forces. The effect of stratification is characterized by the ratio of the buoyancy gradient to squared shear, called Richardson number, Ri. It is widely believed that at Ri exceeding a critical value, Ric, local shear cannot maintain turbulence, and the flow becomes laminar. We revise this concept by extending the energy analys…
Turbulent mixing of liquids and gasses is ubiquitous in nature. It is the basis of all industrial fluid mixing processes, and it determines the spread of pollutants or bioagents in the atmosphere and oceans. Biological organisms even use it to survive in marine ecosystems. A fundamental component of turbulent mixing is the separation of two nearby fluid elements, i.e., pair dispersion. Despite almost eighty years of intense scientific inquiry, no clear understanding of this fundamental aspect of turbulence has emerged. One critical unresolved question is the extent to which the initial separat…
The back-reaction of dispersed rigid fibers to turbulence is analyzed by means of a state-of-the-art fully-coupled immersed boundary method. The following universal scenario is identified: turbulence at large scales looses a consistent part of its kinetic energy (via a Darcy friction term), which partially re-appears at small scales where a new range of energy-containing scales does emerge. Large-scale mixing is thus depleted in favor of a new mixing mechanism arising at the smallest scales. Anchored fibers cause the same back-reaction to turbulence as moving fibers of large inertia. Our resul…
Motivated by the importance of stratified shear flows in geophysical and environmental circumstances, we characterize their energetics, mixing and spectral behavior through a series of direct numerical simulations of turbulence generated by Holmboe wave instability (HWI) under various initial conditions. We focus on circumstances where the stratification is sufficiently `strong' so that HWI is the dominant primary instability of the flow. Our numerical findings demonstrate the emergence of self-organised criticality (SOC) that is manifest as an adjustment of an appropriately defined gradient R…
We report a high-resolution numerical study of two-dimensional (2D) miscible Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) incompressible turbulence with the Boussinesq approximation. An ensemble of 100 independent realizations were performed at small Atwood number and unit Prandtl number with a spatial resolution of $2048\times8193$ grid points. Our main focus is on the temporal evolution and the scaling behavior of global quantities and of small-scale turbulence properties. Our results show that the buoyancy force balances the inertial force at all scales below the integral length scale and thus validate the basic f…
The Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability develops and leads to turbulence when a heavy fluid falls under the action of gravity through a light one. We consider this phenomenon accompanied by a reactive transformation between the fluids, and study with Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) how the reaction (flame) affects the turbulent mixing in the Boussinesq approximation. We discuss "slow" reactions where the characteristic reaction time exceeds the temporal scale of the RT instability. In the early turbulent stage, effects of the flame are distributed over a maturing mixing zone, whose development…
The two-phase mixing layer formed between parallel gas and liquid streams is an important fundamental problem in turbulent multiphase flows. The problem is relevant to many industrial applications and natural phenomena, such as air-blast atomizers in fuel injection systems and breaking waves in the ocean. The velocity difference between the gas and liquid streams triggers an interfacial instability which can be convective or absolute depending on the stream properties and injection parameters. In the present study, a direct numerical simulation of a two-phase gas-liquid mixing layer that lie i…
Rayleigh--Taylor fluid turbulence through a bed of rigid, finite-size, spheres is investigated by means of high-resolution Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS), fully coupling the fluid and the solid phase via a state-of-the art Immersed Boundary Method (IBM). The porous character of the medium reveals a totally different physics for the mixing process when compared to the well-known phenomenology of classical RT mixing. For sufficiently small porosity, the growth-rate of the mixing layer is linear in time (instead of quadratical) and the velocity fluctuations tend to saturate to a constant valu…
While various parameterizations of vertical turbulent fluxes at different levels of complexity have been proposed, each has its own limitations. For example, simple first-order closure schemes such as the K-Profile Parameterization (KPP) lack energetic constraints; two-equation models like $k-ε$ directly solve an equation for the turbulent kinetic energy but do not account for non-local fluxes, and high-order closures that include the non-local transport terms are computationally expensive. To address these, here we extend the Assumed-Distribution Higher-Order Closure (ADC) framework originall…
Since the introduction of the logarithmic law of the wall more than 80 years ago, the equation for the mean velocity profile in turbulent boundary layers has been widely applied to model near-surface processes and parameterise surface drag. Yet the hypothetical turbulent eddies proposed in the original logarithmic law derivation and mixing length theory of Prandtl have never been conclusively linked to physical features in the flow. Here, we present evidence that suggests these eddies correspond to regions of coherent streamwise momentum known as uniform momentum zones (UMZs). The arrangement …
Lagrangian studies of the local temperature mixing and heat transport in turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection are presented, based on three-dimensional direct numerical simulations. Contrary to vertical pair distances, the temporal growth of lateral pair distances agrees with the Richardson law, but yields a smaller Richardson constant due to correlated pair motion in plumes. Our results thus imply that Richardson dispersion is also found in anisotropic turbulence. We find that extremely large vertical accelerations appear less frequently than lateral ones and are not connected with rising or …
The turbulent Rayleigh--Taylor system in a rotating reference frame is investigated by direct numerical simulations within the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation. On the basis of theoretical arguments, supported by our simulations, we show that the Rossby number decreases in time, and therefore the Coriolis force becomes more important as the system evolves and produces many effects on Rayleigh--Taylor turbulence. We find that rotation reduces the intensity of turbulent velocity fluctuations and therefore the growth rate of the temperature mixing layer. Moreover, in presence of rotation the con…
We present an approach to turbulence closure based on mixing length theory with three-dimensional fluctuations against a two-dimensional background. This model is intended to be rapidly computable for implementation in stellar evolution software and to capture a wide range of relevant phenomena with just a single free parameter, namely the mixing length. We incorporate magnetic, rotational, baroclinic and buoyancy effects exactly within the formalism of linear growth theories with nonlinear decay. We treat differential rotation effects perturbatively in the corotating frame using a novel contr…
We consider turbulence driven by a large-scale horizontal shear in Kolmogorov flow (i.e. with sinusoidal body forcing) and a background linear stable stratification with buoyancy frequency $N_B^2$ imposed in the third, vertical direction in a fluid with kinematic viscosity $ν$. This flow is known to be organised into layers by nonlinear unstable steady states, which incline the background shear in the vertical and can be demonstrated to be the finite-amplitude saturation of a sequence of instabilities, originally from the laminar state. Here, we investigate the next order of motions in this sy…
The dynamics of Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence convection in presence of an alternating, time periodic acceleration is studied by means of extensive direct numerical simulations of the Boussinesq equations. Within this framework, we discover a new mechanism of relaminarization of turbulence: The alternating acceleration, which initially produces a growing turbulent mixing layer, at longer times suppresses turbulent fluctuation and drives the system toward an asymptotic stationary configuration. Dimensional arguments and linear stability theory are used to predict the width of the mixing layer in t…
The role of polymers additives on the turbulent convective flow of a Rayleigh--Taylor system is investigated by means of direct numerical simulations (DNS) of Oldroyd-B viscoelastic model. The dynamics of polymers elongation follow adiabatically the self-similar evolution of the turbulent mixing layer, and shows the appearance of a strong feedback on the flow which originate a cut off for polymer elongations. The viscoelastic effects on the mixing properties of the flow are twofold. Mixing is appreciably enhanced at large scales (the mixing layer growth-rate is larger than that of the purely N…
The effects of different initial density distributions on the evolution of buoyancy-driven homogeneous variable-density turbulence (HVDT) at low (0.05) and high (0.75) Atwood numbers are studied by using high-resolution direct numerical simulations. HVDT aims to mimic the acceleration-driven Rayleigh-Taylor and shock-driven Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities and reveals new physics that arise from variable-density effects on the turbulent mixing. Here, the initial amounts of pure light and pure heavy flows are altered primarily to mimic the variable-density turbulence at the different locations o…
High-Fidelity Simulations of Two Miscible Fluids in Small Scale Turbulent Mixers Using a Variational Multiscale Finite Element Method
School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University（普渡大学机械工程学院）；Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Purdue University（普渡大学农业与生物工程系）；Davidson School of Chemical Engineering (by courtesy), Purdue University（普渡大学戴维森化学学院（荣誉））
Micromixer is a key element in lab on a chip for broad applications in the analysis and measurement of chemistry and engineering. Previous investigations reported electrokinetic (EK) turbulence could be realized in a Y-type micromixer with a cross-sectional dimension of 100 $μ$m order. Although the ultrafast turbulent mixing can be generated at a bulk flow Reynolds number of O(1), the micromixer has not been optimized. In this investigation, we systematically investigated the influence of electric field intensity, AC frequency, electric conductivity ratio, and channel width at the entrance on …
