Kinetic and thermal energy dissipation rates in two-dimensional Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence

Abstract

The statistical properties of the kinetic εu and thermal εθ energy dissipation rates in two-dimensional Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) turbulence are studied by means of direct numerical simulations at small Atwood number and unit Prandtl number. Although εθ is important but εu can be neglected in the energy transport processes, the probability density functions of εu and εθ both show self-similarity properties during the RT evolution. The distributions are well fitted by a stretched exponential function and found to depart distinctly from the log-normal distribution for small amplitudes. Within the turbulent range, the intense dissipation events occur near the interfaces of hot and cold fluids, leading to a strong positive correlation between εu and εθ. Our results further reveal that although there is no constant fractal dimension for the fluid interfaces within the inertial range, the local fractal dimensions obtained at different times share similar scale-dependence.