Synthetic three-dimensional turbulent passive scalar fields via the minimal Lagrangian map

Abstract

A method for simple but realistic generation of three-dimensional synthetic turbulent passive scalar fields is presented. The method is an extension of the minimal turnover Lagrangian map approach (MTLM) [C. Rosales and C. Meneveau, Phys. Rev. E 78, 016313 (2008)] formulated for the generation of synthetic turbulent velocity fields. In this development, the minimal Lagrangian map is applied to deform simultaneously a vector field and an advected scalar field. This deformation takes place over a hierarchy of spatial scales encompassing a range from integral to dissipative scales. For each scale, fluid particles are mapped transporting the scalar property, without interaction or diffusional effects, from their initial configuration to new positions determined only by their velocity at the beginning of the motion and a parameter chosen to accumulate deformation for the equivalent of the phenomenological “turn-over” time scale. The procedure is studied for the case of inertial-convective regime. It is found that many features of passive scalar turbulence are well reproduced by this simple kinematical construction. Fundamental statistics of the resulting synthetic scalar fields, evaluated through the flatness and probability density functions of the scalar gradient and scalar increments, reproduce quite well the known statistical characteristics of passive scalars in turbulent fields. High-order statistics are also consistent with those observed in real hydrodynamic turbulence. The anomalous scaling of real turbulence is well reproduced for different kind of structure functions, with good quantitative agreement in general, for the scaling exponents. The spatial structure of the scalar field is also quite realistic, as well as several characteristics of the dissipation fields for the scalar variance and kinetic energy. Similarly, the statistical geometry at dissipative scales that ensues from the coupling of velocity and scalar gradients behaves in agreement with what is already known for real scalar turbulence in the considered regime. The results indicate that the multiscale self-distortion of the velocity field is an important factor to capture realistically turbulent scalar features beyond low-order statistics.