Energy dissipation statistics along the Lagrangian trajectories in three-dimensional turbulent flows

Abstract

Energy dissipation rate is relevant in the turbulent phenomenology theory, such as the classical Kolmogorov 1941 and 1962 refined similarity hypothesis. However, it is extremely difficult to retrieve experimentally or numerically. In this paper, the full energy dissipation, its proxy and the pseudo-energy dissipation rate along the Lagrangian trajectories in the three-dimensional turbulent flows are examined by using a state-of-art high resolution direct numerical simulation database with a Reynolds number Re λ = 400. It is found that the energy dissipation proxy e P is more correlated with the full energy dissipation rate e. The corresponding correlation coefficient ρ between the velocity gradient and e shows a Gaussian distribution. Furthermore, the coarse-grained dissipation rate is considered. The cross correlation ρ is found to be increased with the increasing of the scale τ. Finally, the hierarchical structure is extracted for the full energy dissipation rate, its proxy and the pseudo one. The results show a power-law behavior in the inertial range 10 ≤τ/τ η ≤ 100. The experimental scaling exponent of the full energy dissipation rate is found to be h L =0.69, agrees very well with the one found for the Eulerian velocity. The experimental values for e P and e S are around h L = 0.78, implying a more intermittent Lagrangian turbulence. Therefore, the intermittency parameter provided by e P and e S will be biased.