Fractional derivative dynamics of intermittent turbulence

Abstract

Intermittent turbulence means that the turbulence eddies do not fill the space completely, so the dimension of an intermittent turbulence takes the values between 2 and 3. Turbulence diffusion is a super-diffusion, and the probability of density function is fat-tailed. In this paper, the viscosity term in the Navier-Stokes equation will be denoted as a fractional derivative of Laplatian operator. Dimensionless analysis shows that the order of the fractional derivative α is closely related to the dimension of intermittent turbulence D. For the homogeneous isotropic Kolmogorov turbulence, the order of the fractional derivatives α=2, i.e. the turbulence can be modeled by the integer order of Navier-Stokes equation. However, the intermittent turbulence must be modeled by the fractional derivative of Navier-Stokes equation. For the Kolmogorov turbulence, diffusion displacement is proportional to t3, i.e. Richardson diffusion, but for the intermittent turbulence, diffusion displacement is stronger than Richardson diffusion.