Turbulent Shear Flows Research Articles

Slow-growth approximation for near-wall patch representation of wall-bounded turbulence

Wall-bounded turbulent shear flows are known to exhibit universal small-scale dynamics that are modulated by large-scale flow structures. Strong pressure gradients complicate this characterization, however. They can cause significant variation of the mean flow in the streamwise direction. For such situations, we perform asymptotic analysis of the Navier–Stokes equations to inform a model for the effect of mean flow growth on near-wall turbulence in a small domain localized to the boundary. The asymptotics are valid whenever the viscous length scale is small relative to the length scale over which the mean flow varies. To ensure the correct momentum environment, a dynamic procedure is introduced that accounts for the additional sources of mean momentum flux through the upper domain boundary arising from the asymptotic terms. Comparisons of the model's low-order, single-point statistics with those from direct numerical simulation and well-resolved large eddy simulation of adverse-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers indicate the asymptotic model successfully accounts for the effect of boundary layer growth on the small-scale near-wall turbulence.

Nonlinear mode coupling and energetics of driven magnetized shear-flow turbulence

To comprehensively understand the saturation of two-dimensional (2D) magnetized Kelvin–Helmholtz-instability-driven turbulence, energy transfer analysis is extended from the traditional interaction between scales to include eigenmode interactions, by using the nonlinear couplings of linear eigenmodes of the ideal instability. While both kinetic and magnetic energies cascade to small scales, a significant fraction of turbulent energy deposited by unstable modes in the fluctuation spectrum is shown to be re-routed to the conjugate-stable modes at the instability scale. They remove energy from the forward cascade at its inception. The remaining cascading energy flux is shown to attenuate exponentially at a small scale, dictated by the large-scale stable modes. Guided by a widely used instability-saturation assumption, a general quasi-linear model of instability is tested by retaining all nonlinear interactions except those that couple to the large-scale stable modes. These complex interactions are analytically removed from the magnetohydrodynamic equations using a novel technique. Observations are an explosive large-scale vortex separation instead of the well-known merger of 2D, a dramatic enhancement in turbulence level and spectral energy fluxes, and a reduced small-scale dissipation length scale. These show the critical role of the stable modes in instability saturation. Possible reduced-order turbulence models are proposed for fusion and astrophysical plasmas, based on eigenmode-expanded energy transfer analyses.

Homoclinic bifurcation and switching of edge state in plane Couette flow.

We identify the presence of three homoclinic bifurcations that are associated with edge states in a system that is governed by the full Navier-Stokes equation. In plane Couette flow with a streamwise period slightly longer than the minimal unit, we describe a rich bifurcation scenario that is related to new time-periodic solutions and the Nagata steady solution [M. Nagata, J. Fluid Mech. 217, 519-527 (1990)]. In this computational domain, the vigorous time-periodic solution (PO3) with comparable fluctuation amplitude to turbulence and the lower branch of the Nagata steady solution are considered as edge states at different ranges of Reynolds number. These edge states can help in understanding the mechanism of subcritical transition to turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows. At the Reynolds numbers at which the homoclinic bifurcations occur, we find the creation (or destruction) of the time-periodic solutions. At a higher Reynolds number, we observe the edge state switching from the lower-branch Nagata steady solution to PO3 at the creation of this vigorous cycle due to the homoclinic bifurcation. Consequently, the formation of the boundary separating the basins of attraction of the laminar attractor and the time-periodic/chaotic attractor also switches to the respective stable manifolds of the edge states, providing a change in the behavior of a typical amplitude of perturbation toward triggering the transition to turbulence.

Patterns in transitional shear turbulence. Part 2. Emergence and optimal wavelength

Low Reynolds number turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows en route to laminar flow takes the form of oblique, spatially intermittent turbulent structures. In plane Couette flow, these emerge from uniform turbulence via a spatio-temporal intermittent process in which localised quasi-laminar gaps randomly nucleate and disappear. For slightly lower Reynolds numbers, spatially periodic and approximately stationary turbulent–laminar patterns predominate. The statistics of quasi-laminar regions, including the distributions of space and time scales and their Reynolds-number dependence, are analysed. A smooth, but marked transition is observed between uniform turbulence and flow with intermittent quasi-laminar gaps, whereas the transition from gaps to regular patterns is more gradual. Wavelength selection in these patterns is analysed via numerical simulations in oblique domains of various sizes. Via lifetime measurements in minimal domains, and a wavelet-based analysis of wavelength predominance in a large domain, we quantify the existence and nonlinear stability of a pattern as a function of wavelength and Reynolds number. We report that the preferred wavelength maximises the energy and dissipation of the large-scale flow along laminar–turbulent interfaces. This optimal behaviour is due primarily to the advective nature of the large-scale flow, with turbulent fluctuations playing only a secondary role.

Patterns in transitional shear turbulence. Part 1. Energy transfer and mean-flow interaction

Low Reynolds number turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows en route to laminar flow takes the form of spatially intermittent turbulent structures. In plane shear flows, these appear as a regular pattern of alternating turbulent and quasi-laminar flow. Both the physical and the spectral energy balance of a turbulent–laminar pattern in plane Couette flow are computed and compared to those of uniform turbulence. In the patterned state, the mean flow is strongly modulated and is fuelled by two mechanisms: primarily, the nonlinear self-interaction of the mean flow (via mean advection), and secondly, the extraction of energy from turbulent fluctuations (via negative spectral production, associated with an energy transfer from small to large scales). Negative production at large scales is also found in the uniformly turbulent state. Important features of the energy budgets are surveyed as a function of$Re$through the transition between uniform turbulence and turbulent–laminar patterns.

Flow-Induced Forces for a Group of One Large and Several Small Structures in the Sheared Turbulent Flow

Evaluating the hydrodynamic force fluctuations acting on each structure in a group of subsea objects of different cross-section shapes, sizes and relative positions represents a challenge due to the sensitivity of the vortex shedding process, especially for a variety of sheared flows. The present study uses the numerical 2D computational fluid dynamics model to estimate the flow-induced forces on a group of small circular and D-shaped cylinders in the linear and parabolic sheared flow, which are placed in proximity to a larger structure of the squared cross-section. This allows us to evaluate loads, which are affected by the presence of subsea equipment located on the seabed. The average Reynolds number of the considered linear flow profile is 3900, while the parabolic flow profile has the maximum Reynolds number of 3900. The k-ω SST turbulence model is used for simulations. The work demonstrates the effect of the cross-sectional shape of smaller cylinders on hydrodynamic coefficients, explores the effect from the spacing in between the structures and highlights differences between loads in the linearly sheared and parabolic flow. The results obtained show that the presence of the squared cylinder notably influences the mean drag coefficient on the first cylinder, for both circular and D-shaped cylinders. The parabolic sheared flow profile in this series leads to the highest mean drag and the highest amplitudes of the fluctuating drag and lift coefficients.

Turbulent disruption of density staircases in stratified shear flows

The formation of step-like ‘density staircase’ distributions induced by stratification and turbulence has been widely studied, and can be explained by the ‘instability’ of a sufficiently strongly stably stratified turbulent flow due to the decrease of the turbulent density flux with increasing stratification via the ‘Phillips mechanism’ (Phillips, Deep Sea Research and Oceanographic Abstracts, vol. 19, 1972, pp. 79–81. Elsevier). However, such density staircases are not often observed in ocean interiors, except in regions where double-diffusion processes are important, leading to thermohaline staircases. Using reduced-order models for the evolution of velocity and density gradients, we analyse staircase formation in stratified and sheared turbulent flows. Under the assumption of inertial scaling $\epsilon \sim U^3/L$ for the kinetic energy dissipation rate $\epsilon$ , where $U$ and $L$ are characteristic velocity and length scales, we determine ranges of bulk Richardson numbers ${Ri}_{b}$ and turbulent Prandtl numbers ${Pr}_{T}$ for which staircases can potentially form and show that the Phillips mechanism only survives in the limit of sufficiently small turbulent Prandtl numbers. For relevant oceanic parameters, a range of turbulent Prandtl numbers above which the system is not prone to staircases is found to be ${Pr}_T \simeq 0.5\unicode{x2013}0.8$ . Since several studies indicate that the turbulent Prandtl number in stably stratified turbulence and in ocean interiors is usually above this threshold, this result supports the empirical observation that staircases are not favoured in ocean interiors in the presence of relatively homogeneous and sustained turbulence. We also show that our analysis is robust to other scalings for $\epsilon$ (such as the more strongly stratified scaling $\epsilon \sim U^{2}N_{c}$ , where $N_{c}$ is a characteristic value of the buoyancy frequency), supporting our results in both shear-dominated and buoyancy-dominated turbulent regimes as well as in weakly and strongly stratified regimes.

Computational fluid dynamics and experimental validation of aerosol jet printing with multi-stage flow focusing lenses

A 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) framework is presented to model and explain critical aerodynamic interactions occurring in the printhead during aerosol jet printing (AJP) with multi-stage flow focusing lenses. AJP has demonstrated great potential to fabricate complex circuits and conductive devices for numerous applications, including flexible electronics, medical diagnostic devices, and fuel cells. However, the devices manufactured by AJP are currently relegated to prototype roles due to poor repeatability of the deposited structures. The lack of process consistency in AJP arises from an incomplete understanding of causal aerodynamic interactions that influence the structure and repeatability of the printed features. Herein, a comprehensive CFD framework is presented to analyze the effects of gas flow rates, nozzle geometry, stand-off distance, printhead design, and aerosol droplet size on the resolution and morphology of printed features. Compressible Navier-Stokes equations with a k-ε turbulence model are solved to simulate flow conditions in the aerosol jet printhead. Additionally, a Lagrangian discrete phase model is used to simulate the transport of aerosolized ink droplets through the turbulent shear flow. The results highlight the crucial role of the design of the mist tube and the first aerodynamic lens, the density of the sheath gas, and the size of the droplets in the aerosol stream in determining print resolution and quality. A favorable comparison was found between numerically calculated results and experimental data obtained using the NanoJet™ system. CFD models presented in this work are expected to aid in identifying optimal process windows a priori, to improve process consistency.

Boundary layer flow over a bump and the three-dimensional law of the wall

Many turbulence theories in use today are based on two-dimensional equilibrium flows and have limitations when applied to three-dimensional flows. A three-dimensional law of the wall would help to improve simulation fidelity, but while several versions have been proposed, none have been widely accepted. In this study, the three-dimensional attached boundary layer flow over the windward side of the BeVERLI (Benchmark Validation Experiments for RANS/LES Investigations) Hill bump model was measured using near-wall laser Doppler velocimetry in the Virginia Tech Stability Wind Tunnel to study the mean flow and turbulence structure. These mean velocity measurements are compared with the predictions of the proposed three-dimensional (3D) law of the wall of van den Berg [A three-dimensional law of the wall for turbulent shear flows. J Fluid Mech. 1975;70(1):149–160.], which incorporates pressure gradients and inertial effects but assumes alignment of the mean flow gradient and shear-stress angles, and to the sublayer momentum equations, which are exact in the limit of wall-normal . In regions with mild stress/strain misalignment, the van den Berg model compares favourably with the experimental data up to a maximum of , and the sublayer momentum relationship compares favourably with the experimental data in the linear sublayer.

Sustainable Drag Reduction of Fatty Acid Amide‐Based Oleogel Surface Under High‐Speed Shear Flows

AbstractNepenthes alata‐inspired micro/nano‐textured lubricant‐infused surface (LIS) has shown strong potential in the fields of drag reduction (DR), anti‐biofouling, and self‐cleaning. However, its surface‐slippery property is largely degraded under turbulent shear flow conditions due to the loss of the impregnated oil. This condition inhibits its practical applications to marine vehicles. The mucus‐impregnated tissue systems of marine creatures are primarily based on fatty acid amides (FAAs), such as erucamide or oleamide, which have been commercially utilized as solid‐slip additives. A stable lubricant interface of erucamide‐PDMS composite (EPC) oleogel is formed by cross‐linking erucamide with PDMS gel network prior to infusion of silicon oil. In this study, the surface stability and lubricant retention of EPC are investigated in consideration of DR applications. The fabricated EPC‐oleogel surface exhibits shear stable DR under harsh conditions, such as high pressure, temperature, and shear flow conditions. The surface shows a shear stable DR performance of about 14% even up to a high‐speed flow of 12 ms−1, corresponding to friction Reynolds number (Reτ) of approximately 5000. The superior lubrication stability of FAA‐oleogel at the flow conditions of cruising ships ensures its strong potential for sustainable fuel economy of marine vehicles.

Turbulent Taylor-Couette flow of dilute polymeric solutions: a10-year retrospective.

This retrospective aims to present a coherent history of important findings in direct numerical simulations and experiments in turbulent Taylor-Couette (TC) flow of dilute polymeric solutions in the last decade. Specifically, the sequence of flow transitions due to a continuous increase of fluid elasticity from classical Newtonian, to inertially and in turn to elastically dominated, and finally to the inertialess purely elastic turbulence, is presented. In each elastically modified flow state, the drag modification, coherent flow structures, velocity and elastic stress statistics, mechanism of turbulent kinetic energy production, spectral features as well as the self-sustaining cycles of turbulence, are discussed. Finally, to provide a broader perspective, an overview of important similarities and differences between elastically induced turbulence in prototypical curvilinear and rectilinear shear flows including the curvature-free limit of TC flow, namely, the spanwise-rotating plane Couette flow, is presented. This article is part of the theme issue 'Taylor-Couette and related flows on the centennial of Taylor's seminal Philosophical Transactions paper (part 1)'.

Improved assessment of the statistical stability of turbulent flows using extended Orr–Sommerfeld stability analysis

The concept of statistical stability is central to Malkus's 1956 attempt to predict the mean profile in shear flow turbulence. Here we discuss how his original attempt to assess this – an Orr–Sommerfeld (OS) analysis on the mean profile – can be improved by considering a cumulant expansion of the Navier–Stokes equations. Focusing on the simplest non-trivial closure (commonly referred to as CE2) that corresponds to the quasilinearized Navier–Stokes equations, we develop an extended OS analysis that also incorporates information about the fluctuation field. A more practical version of this – minimally extended OS analysis – is identified and tested on a number of statistically steady and, therefore, statistically stable turbulent channel flows. Beyond the concept of statistical stability, this extended stability analysis should also improve the popular approach of mean flow linear analysis in time-dependent shear flows by including more information about the underlying flow in its predictions as well as for other flows with additional physics such as convection.

Turbulent Transport in a Stratified Shear Flow

Within the framework of the theory of unsteady turbulent flows in a stratified fluid, a new parameterization of the turbulent Prandtl number is proposed. The parameterization is included in the k-ε-closure and used within the three-dimensional model of thermohydrodynamics of an enclosed water body where density distribution includes pycnocline. This allows us to describe turbulence in a stratified shear flow without the restrictions associated with the gradient Richardson number and justify the choice of closure constants. Numerical experiments, where the downward penetration of turbulence was considered, confirm the advantage of the developed approach in describing the effects neglected in the classical closures.

A compressible turbulence model for the dissipation rate

In this work, the ability of a Reynolds stress model to compute turbulent homogeneous shear flow with significant compressibility effects is discussed. Several studies of compressible turbulent flows carried out in the past years have shown that the pressure strain correlation is mainly responsible for the strong changes in the magnitude of the Reynolds stress anisotropies. Two recent compressible models of this term are considered in conjunction with the standard model of the dissipation rate of the turbulent kinetic energy to predict compressible homogeneous flow highly sheared are tested. It is found that deficiencies appear in the calculations even if the pressure strain model is improved by compressibility corrections. Consistent with earlier studies, this deficiency is attributed to the use of the incompressible model for turbulent dissipation. However, a compressibility correction of this equation model uncovers the main focus of the present study. This correction makes the standard coefficients of this equation depend on the turbulent gradient Mach and Mach numbers. The proposed model is tested for low and strong compressibility cases from the DNS results of Sarkar. A comparison of the proposed model predictions with the DNS results shows good qualitative agreement. Therefore, compressibility correction for the incompressible model of the turbulent dissipation rate is found to be an important issue for the compressible homogeneous turbulent shear flow.

Stochastic model for the alignment and tumbling of rigid fibers in two-dimensional turbulent shear flow

Non-spherical particles transported by an anisotropic turbulent flow preferentially align with the mean shear and intermittently tumble when the local strain fluctuates. Such an intricate behaviour is here studied for inertialess, rod-shaped particles embedded in a two-dimensional turbulent flow with homogeneous shear. A Lagrangian stochastic model for the rods angular dynamics is introduced and compared to the results of direct numerical simulations. The model consists in superposing a short-correlated random component to the steady large-scale mean shear, and can thereby be integrated analytically. To reproduce the single-time orientation statistics obtained numerically, it is found that one has to properly account for the combined effect of the mean shear, for anisotropic velocity gradient fluctuations, and for the presence of persistent rotating structures in the flow that bias Lagrangian statistics. The model is then used to address two-time statistics. The notion of tumbling rate is extended to diffusive dynamics by introducing the stationary probability flux of the rods unfolded angle. The model is found to reproduce the long-term effects of an average shear on the mean and the variance of the fibres angular increment. Still, it does not reproduce an intricate behaviour observed in numerics for intermediate times: the unfolded angle is there very similar to a L\'evy walk with distributions of increments displaying intermediate power-law tails.

Learning chaotic systems from noisy data via multi-step optimization and adaptive training.

A data-driven sparse identification method is developed to discover the underlying governing equations from noisy measurement data through the minimization of Multi-Step-Accumulation (MSA) in error. The method focuses on the multi-step model, while conventional sparse regression methods, such as the Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics method (SINDy), are one-step models. We adopt sparse representation and assume that the underlying equations involve only a small number of functions among possible candidates in a library. The new development in MSA is to use a multi-step model, i.e., predictions from an approximate evolution scheme based on initial points. Accordingly, the loss function comprises the total error at all time steps between the measured series and predicted series with the same initial point. This enables MSA to capture the dynamics directly from the noisy measurements, resisting the corruption of noise. By use of several numerical examples, we demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of the proposed MSA method, including a two-dimensional chaotic map, the logistic map, a two-dimensional damped oscillator, the Lorenz system, and a reduced order model of a self-sustaining process in turbulent shear flows. We also perform further studies under challenging conditions, such as noisy measurements, missing data, and large time step sizes. Furthermore, in order to resolve the difficulty of the nonlinear optimization, we suggest an adaptive training strategy, namely, by gradually increasing the length of time series for training. Higher prediction accuracy is achieved in an illustrative example of the chaotic map by the adaptive strategy.

Structure of the most unstable modes in anisotropic turbulence

Dynamics of most unstable modes from isotropic state is the topic of this paper considered. Initial conditions for these modes are given to be agreed with the well-known energy spectra of fully developed turbulence. The simplified equation for the small-scale velocity of incompressible fluid is applied. The simple shear turbulent flow is considered. The final expressions for Reynolds stresses, dissipation transfer should be averaged over the time of the energetic eddies turnover.

Approach towards local isotropy in statistically stationary turbulent shear flows

We analyse the approach towards local isotropy in statistically stationary turbulent shear flows using the transport equations for the fourth-order moments of the velocity derivative. It is found that terms of these equations representing the large-scale contribution associated with the uniform mean velocity gradient gradually decrease as the Taylor microscale Reynolds number $Re_\lambda$ increases, and finally disappear when $Re_\lambda$ is sufficiently large. This gradual weakening of the large-scale effect is accompanied by a gradual approach towards local isotropy of the small-scale motion. The rate at which local isotropy is approached depends on the weakening of the large-scale forcing, which is controlled by the magnitude of the non-dimensional velocity shear parameter $S^*$ ( $\equiv \overline {u_1^2}({{\partial {{\bar U}_1}}}/{{\partial {x_2}}})/{\bar {\varepsilon }_{iso}}$ , where $\bar {\varepsilon }_{iso}$ is the isotropic mean turbulent energy dissipation rate, $\overline {u_1^2}$ is the streamwise velocity variance, and ${\partial {{\bar U}_1}/\partial {x_2}}$ is the uniform mean velocity gradient in the transverse direction). In particular, we show that the approach towards local isotropy can be recast in the form $C\, Re_\lambda ^{-1}$ , where $C$ is the product of $S^*$ and a ratio of transverse-to-streamwise velocity derivative variances. This is consistent with the behaviour of the normalized third-order moments of transverse velocity derivatives. With the further use of the transport equations for the eighth- and twelfth-order velocity derivative moments, it is found that the even moments of transverse velocity derivatives can significantly affect the rate at which local isotropy is approached, especially for higher orders.

Physical mechanisms for droplet size and effective viscosity asymmetries in turbulent emulsions

By varying the oil volume fraction, the microscopic droplet size and the macroscopic rheology of emulsions are investigated in a Taylor–Couette turbulent shear flow. Although here oil and water in the emulsions have almost the same physical properties (density and viscosity), unexpectedly, we find that oil-in-water (O/W) and water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions have very distinct hydrodynamic behaviours, i.e. the system is clearly asymmetric. By looking at the micro-scales, the average droplet diameter hardly changes with the oil volume fraction for O/W or for W/O. However, for W/O it is about $50\,\%$ larger than that of O/W. At the macro-scales, the effective viscosity of O/W is higher when compared to that of W/O. These asymmetric behaviours are expected to be caused by the presence of surface-active contaminants from the walls of the system. By introducing an oil-soluble surfactant at high concentration, remarkably, we recover the symmetry (droplet size and effective viscosity) between O/W and W/O emulsions. Based on this, we suggest a possible mechanism responsible for the initial asymmetry and reach conclusions on emulsions where interfaces are fully covered by the surfactant. Next, we discuss what sets the droplet size in turbulent emulsions. We uncover a $-6/5$ scaling dependence of the droplet size on the Reynolds number of the flow. Combining the scaling dependence and the droplet Weber number, we conclude that the droplet fragmentation, which determines the droplet size, occurs within the boundary layer and is controlled by the dynamic pressure caused by the gradient of the mean flow, as proposed by Levich (Physicochemical Hydrodynamics, Prentice-Hall, 1962), instead of the dynamic pressure due to turbulent fluctuations, as proposed by Kolmogorov (Dokl. Akad. Nauk. SSSR, vol. 66, 1949, pp. 825–828). The present findings provide an understanding of both the microscopic droplet formation and the macroscopic rheological behaviours in dynamic emulsification, and connects them.

Meandering motions and their relation to the energy spectrum in turbulent shear flows

This study presents the contribution of the large-scale motions to the turbulent energy using custom-made arrays of hot-wire probes arranged in the span-wise direction. Decomposing the stream-wise velocity fluctuations into large- and small-scale components through the Fourier transform in the span-wise direction and evaluating their scales using the two-point correlation, it is found that the large-scale components have a large contribution in the generation of the outer peak of the turbulent pre-multiplied spectrum (PMS). The outer peak remains even in the low Reynolds number, and it is related to the span-wise organization of large-scale structure of u fluctuations. The spatial correlation in the stream-wise direction shows the large scale of 10δ, where δ is the boundary layer thickness, which is consistent with the outer peak wavenumber of PMS.