Direction of scalar transport in turbulent channel flow

Abstract

The concept of reverse diffusion, introduced by Corrsin to describe the motion of particles as they move towards a location in the flow field, is fundamental to the understanding of mixing. In this work, direct numerical simulations in conjunction with the tracking of scalar markers are utilized in infinitely long channels to study the principal direction of transport of heat (or mass) for both forwards and backwards single particle dispersion. The viscous sub-layer, the transition region (between the viscous sub-layer and the logarithmic region), and the logarithmic region of a Poiseuille flow and a plane Couette flow channel are studied. Fluctuating velocities of scalar markers captured in these regions are used to obtain the full autocorrelation coefficient tensor forwards and backwards with time. The highest eigenvalue of the velocity correlation coefficient tensor quantifies the highest amount of turbulent heat transport, while the corresponding eigenvector points to the main direction of transport. Different Prandtl number, Pr, fluids are simulated for the two types of flow. It is found that the highest eigenvalues are higher in the case of backwards dispersion compared to the case of forwards dispersion for any Pr, in both flow cases. The principal direction for backwards and forwards dispersion is different than for forwards dispersion, for all Pr, and in all flow regions for both flows. Fluids with lower Pr behave different than the higher Pr fluids because of increased molecular diffusion effects. The current study also establishes an interesting analogy of turbulent dispersion to optics defining the turbulent dispersive ratio, a parameter that can be used to identify the differences in the direction of turbulent heat transport between forwards and backwards dispersion. A spectral analysis of the auto-correlation coefficient for both forwards and backwards dispersion shows a universal behavior with slope of −1 at intermediate frequencies.