Scale-space energy density for inhomogeneous turbulence based on filtered velocities

Abstract

The energy spectrum is commonly used to describe the scale dependence of turbulent fluctuations in homogeneous isotropic turbulence. In contrast, one-point statistical quantities, such as the turbulent kinetic energy, are mainly employed for inhomogeneous turbulence models. Attempts have been made to describe the scale dependence of inhomogeneous turbulence using the second-order structure function and two-point velocity correlation. However, unlike the energy spectrum, expressions for the energy density in the scale space fail to satisfy the requirement of being non-negative. In this study, a new expression for the scale-space energy density based on filtered velocities is proposed to clarify the reasons behind the negative values of the energy density and to obtain a better understanding of inhomogeneous turbulence. The new expression consists of homogeneous and inhomogeneous parts; the former is always non-negative, while the latter can be negative because of the turbulence inhomogeneity. Direct numerical simulation data of homogeneous isotropic turbulence and a turbulent channel flow are used to evaluate the two parts of the energy density and turbulent energy. It was found that the inhomogeneous part of the turbulent energy shows non-zero values near the wall and at the centre of a channel flow. In particular, the inhomogeneous part of the energy density changes its sign depending on the scale. A concave profile of the filtered-velocity variance at the wall accounts for the negative value of the energy density in the region very close to the wall.