Dissipation element analysis of turbulent scalar fields

Abstract

Dissipation element analysis is a new approach for studying turbulent scalar fields. Gradient trajectories starting from each material point in a scalar field in ascending directions will inevitably reach a maximal and a minimal point. The ensemble of material points sharing the same pair ending points is named a dissipation element. Dissipation elements can be parameterized by the length scale l and the scalar difference Δϕ ′, which are defined as the straight line connecting the two extremal points and the scalar difference at these points, respectively. The decomposition of a turbulent field into dissipation elements is space-filling. This allows us to reconstruct certain statistical quantities of fine scale turbulence which cannot be obtained otherwise. The marginal probability density function (PDF) of the length scale distribution based on a Poisson random cutting–reconnection process shows satisfactory agreement with the direct numerical simulation (DNS) results. In order to obtain the further information that is needed for the modeling of scalar mixing in turbulence, such as the marginal PDF of the length of elements and all conditional moments as well as their scaling exponents, there is a need to model the joint PDF of l and Δϕ ′ as well. A compensation-defect model is put forward in this work to show the dependence of Δϕ ′ on l. The agreement between the model prediction and DNS results is satisfactory, which may provide another explanation of the Kolmogorov scaling and help to improve turbulent mixing models. Furthermore, intermittency and cliff structure can also be related to and explained from the joint PDF.