Energy dissipation scaling in uniformly sheared turbulence.

Abstract

The rate of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation in spatially developing, uniformly sheared turbulence is examined experimentally. In the far-downstream fully developed region of the flow, we confirm that the dissipation parameter C(ɛ) is constant. More importantly, however, we find two upstream regions where this parameter could be scaled with the local turbulent Reynolds number as C(ɛ)=ARe(λ)(α); the exponents in these two regions are, respectively, α=-0.6 and 0.5. The observed changes in scaling laws are explained by consideration of structural changes in the turbulence.