Turbulent Pair Dispersion Research Articles

On local isotropy and scale dependence of pair dispersion in turbulent canopy flows

Canopy flows in the atmospheric surface layer play important economic and ecological roles, governing the dispersion of passive scalars in the environment. The interaction of high-velocity fluid and large-scale surface-mounted obstacles in canopy flows produces drag and causes intense, inhomogeneous and anisotropic turbulence. In this work, we focus on the turbulent dispersion of passive scalars by studying the ‘pair dispersion’ – a statistical measure of relative motion between particles. We analyse the results of a three-dimensional particle tracking velocimetry experiment in a wind-tunnel canopy flow, focusing on small scales. We confirm the existence of local isotropy of pair dispersion at scales smaller than a characteristic shear length scale $L_\varGamma =(\epsilon /\varGamma ^3)^{1/2}$ , where $\epsilon$ and $\varGamma$ are the mean dissipation rate and shear rate, respectively. Furthermore, we show that pair dispersion in this locally isotropic regime is a scale-dependent super-diffusive process, similar to what occurs in homogeneous isotropic turbulent flows. In addition, we measure the pair relative velocity correlation function, showing that its de-correlation occurs in the locally isotropic regime, and discuss the implications of this observation for modelling pair dispersion. Thus, our study extends the fundamental understanding of turbulent pair dispersion to the anisotropic inhomogeneous turbulent canopy flow, bringing valuable information for modelling scalar dispersion in the atmospheric surface layer.

Universal alignment in turbulent pair dispersion

Countless processes in nature and industry, from rain droplet nucleation to plankton interaction in the ocean, are intimately related to turbulent fluctuations of local concentrations of advected matter. These fluctuations can be described by considering the change of the separation between particle pairs, known as pair dispersion, which is believed to obey a cubic in time growth according to Richardson’s theory. Our work reveals a universal, scale-invariant alignment between the relative velocity and position vectors of dispersing particles at a mean angle that we show to be a universal constant of turbulence. We connect the value of this mean angle to Richardson’s traditional theory and find agreement with data from a numerical simulation and a laboratory experiment. While the Richardson’s cubic regime has been observed for small initial particle separations only, the constancy of the mean angle manifests throughout the entire inertial range of turbulence. Thus, our work reveals the universal nature of turbulent pair dispersion through a geometrical paradigm whose validity goes beyond the classical theory, and provides a framework for understanding and modeling transport and mixing processes.

Comment on "Universality and Intermittency of Pair Dispersion in Turbulence".

Received 9 May 2022Accepted 28 September 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.029401Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasTurbulenceFluid Dynamics

Universality and Intermittency of Pair Dispersion in Turbulence.

Turbulence can disperse a concentrated parcel of pollutants at a rate over nine orders of magnitude higher than its purely diffusive counterpart. One intriguing signature of turbulent dispersion is its superdiffusive scaling. However, the universality of this scaling law is still in question. By leveraging a new laboratory facility, particle pairs with small initial separations can be tracked over four decades of separation in time and five decades of separation in squared displacement, thereby observing the full range of dispersion scaling laws. The results show that the classical Richardson cubic scaling will be reached not for an initial separation asymptotically close to zero but at a critical value, and this value does not appear to depend on the Reynolds number, providing an effective way to study universal dispersion dynamics. Additionally, the results agree well with the prediction based on the multifractal model and may help reconcile different reported scaling laws from laboratory experiments and field studies.

Generalization of Turbulent Pair Dispersion to Large Initial Separations.

We present a generalization of turbulent pair dispersion to large initial separations (η<r_{0}<L), by introducing a new time scale, τ_{v_{0}}, that reflects the persistence of initial conditions at time τ=0. Results of 3D Lagrangian tracking experiments at moderate Reynolds numbers show that pairs, for which the new time scale is shorter than the eddy turnover time scale, separate as in the Richardson superdiffusive regime, ⟨Δr^{2}⟩∝τ^{3}. The analysis of delay times (time interval to cross Δr=ρr_{0}) of these conditionally sampled pairs exhibit ρ^{2/5} scaling.

Turbulent pair dispersion as a ballistic cascade phenomenology

Since the pioneering work of Richardson in 1926, later refined by Batchelor and Obukhov in 1950, it is predicted that the rate of separation of pairs of fluid elements in turbulent flows with initial separation at inertial scales, grows ballistically first (Batchelor regime), before undergoing a transition towards a super-diffusive regime where the mean-square separation grows as $t^{3}$ (Richardson regime). Richardson empirically interpreted this super-diffusive regime in terms of a non-Fickian process with a scale-dependent diffusion coefficient (the celebrated Richardson’s ‘$4/3$rd’ law). However, the actual physical mechanism at the origin of such a scale dependent diffusion coefficient remains unclear. The present article proposes a simple physical phenomenology for the time evolution of the mean-square relative separation in turbulent flows, based on a scale-dependent ballistic scenario rather than a scale-dependent diffusive. It is shown that this phenomenology accurately retrieves most of the known features of relative dispersion for particles mean-square separation, among others: (i) it is quantitatively consistent with most recent numerical simulations and experiments for mean-square separation between particles (both for the short-term Batchelor regime and the long-term Richardson regime, and for all initial separations at inertial scales); (ii) it gives a simple physical explanation of the origin of the super-diffusive $t^{3}$ Richardson regime which naturally builds itself as an iterative process of elementary short-term scale-dependent ballistic steps; (iii) it shows that the Richardson constant is directly related to the Kolmogorov constant (and eventually to a ballistic persistence parameter); and (iv) in a further extension of the phenomenology, taking into account third-order corrections, it robustly describes the temporal asymmetry between forward and backward dispersion, with an explicit connection to the cascade of energy flux across scales. An important aspect of this phenomenology is that it simply and robustly connects long-term super-diffusive features to elementary short-term mechanisms, and at the same time it connects basic Lagrangian features of turbulent relative dispersion (both at short and long times) to basic Eulerian features of the turbulent field: second-order Eulerian statistics control the growth of separation (both at short and long times) while third-order Eulerian statistics control the temporal asymmetry of the dispersion process, which can then be directly identified as the signature of the energy cascade and associated to well-known exact results as the Karman–Howarth–Monin relation.

Turbulent pair dispersion in the presence of gravity

Turbulent pair dispersion of heavy particles is strongly altered when particles of two different Stokes numbers (bidisperse) are considered, and this is further compounded when a uniform gravitational acceleration is present. Lagrangian trajectories of fluid tracers, and bidisperse heavy particles with and without gravity were calculated from a direct numerical simulation of homogeneous, isotropic turbulence. Particle pair dispersion shows a short-time, ballistic (Batchelor) regime and a transition to super-ballistic dispersion that is suggestive of the emergence of Richardson scaling. A simple equation of motion for inertial, sedimenting particles captures the essential features of the pair dispersion at very short time and length scales. Kolmogorov scaling arguments are able to qualitatively describe the competition between gravity-induced and fluid-induced relative motion in modifying the amount of time the heavy particles spend in the ballistic regime. The transition from ballistic to super-ballistic dispersion for fluid tracers and monodisperse inertial particles exhibits a pronounced sub-ballistic behavior that can be attributed to the mixed velocity–acceleration structure function. The sub-ballistic behavior is strongly suppressed for bidisperse particles, both in the presence or absence of gravity, primarily because of a reduction in the correlation between velocity and acceleration increments.

Turbulent pair dispersion as a continuous-time random walk

AbstractThe phenomenology of turbulent relative dispersion is revisited. A heuristic scenario is proposed, in which pairs of tracers undergo a succession of independent ballistic separations during time intervals whose lengths fluctuate. This approach suggests that the logarithm of the distance between tracers self-averages and performs a continuous-time random walk. This leads to specific predictions for the probability distribution of separations, which differ from those obtained using scale-dependent eddy-diffusivity models (e.g. in the framework of Richardson’s approach). These predictions are tested against high-resolution simulations and shed new light on the explosive separation between tracers.

Geometry and violent events in turbulent pair dispersion

The statistics of Lagrangian pair dispersion in a homogeneous isotropic flow is investigated by means of direct numerical simulations. The focus is on deviations from the Richardson eddy-diffusivity model and in particular on the strong fluctuations experienced by tracers. Evidence is obtained that the distribution of distances attains an almost self-similar regime characterized by a very weak intermittency. The timescale of convergence to this behavior is found to be given by the kinetic energy dissipation time measured at the scale of the initial separation. Conversely the velocity differences between tracers are displaying a strongly anomalous behavior whose scaling properties are very close to that of Lagrangian structure functions. These violent fluctuations are interpreted geometrically and are shown to be responsible for a long-term memory of the initial separation. Despite this strong intermittency, it is found that the mixed moment defined by the ratio between the cube of the longitudinal velocity difference and the distance attains a statistically stationary regime on very short timescales. These results are brought together to address the question of violent events in the distribution of distances. It is found that distances much larger than the average are reached by pairs that have always separated faster since the initial time. They contribute a stretched exponential behavior in the large-value tail of the inter-tracer distance probability distribution. At large times this tail is found to be closer to a pure exponential than to the form obtained from the Richardson diffusive approach. At the same time, the distance distribution displays a time-dependent power-law behavior at very small values, which is interpreted in terms of fractal geometry. It is argued and demonstrated numerically that the exponent converges to one at large time, again in conflict with Richardson’s distribution.

TURBULENT PAIR DISPERSION OF PHOTOSPHERIC BRIGHT POINTS

Observations of solar granulation obtained with the New Solar Telescope of Big Bear Solar Observatory are used to study the turbulent pair dispersion of photospheric bright points in a quiet-Sun area, a coronal hole, and an active region plage. In all the three magnetic environments, it is found that the pair mean-squared separation Δ2(t) follows a power-law timescaling Δ2(t) ~ t η in the range 10 s t 400 s. The power-law index is found to be η 1.5 for all the three investigated regions. It is shown that these results can be explained in the same framework as the classical Batchelor theory, under the hypothesis that the observed range of timescales corresponds to a non-asymptotic regime in which the photospheric bright points keep the memory of their initial separations.

Particle and particle pair dispersion in turbulence modeled with spatially and temporally correlated stochastic processes

In this paper we present a model for modeling the diffusion and relative dispersion of particles in homogeneous isotropic turbulence. We use a Heisenberg-like Hamiltonian to incorporate spatial correlations between fluid particles, which are modeled by stochastic processes correlated in time. We are able to reproduce the ballistic regime in the mean square displacement of single particles and the transition to a normal diffusion regime for long times. For the dispersion of particle pairs we find a t2 dependence of the mean square separation at short times and a t dependence for long ones. For intermediate times indications for a Richardson t3 law are observed in certain situations. Finally, the influence of inertia of real particles on the dispersion is investigated.

Pair Dispersion in Turbulence: The Subdominant Role of Scaling

The mixing properties of turbulent flows are, at first order, related to the dynamics of separation of particle pairs. Scaling laws for the evolution in time of the mean distance between particle pairs <r(2)>(t) have been proposed since the pioneering work of Richardson. We analyze a model which shares some features with 3D experimental and numerical turbulence, and suggest that pure scaling laws are only subdominant. The dynamics is dominated by a very wide distribution of "delay times" t(d), the duration for which particle pairs remain together before their separation increases significantly. The delay time distribution is exponential for small separations and evolves towards a flat distribution at large separations. The observed <r(2)>(t) behavior is best understood as an average over separations that individually follow the Richardson-Obukhov scaling, r(2) ∝ t(3), but each only after a fluctuating time delay t(d), where t(d) is distributed uniformly.

Small-scale anisotropy in Lagrangian turbulence

We report measurements of the second-order Lagrangian structure function and the Lagrangian velocity spectrum in an intensely turbulent laboratory flow. We find that the asymmetries of the large-scale flow are reflected in the small-scale statistics. In addition, we present new measurements of the Lagrangian structure function scaling constant C0, which is of central importance to stochastic turbulence models as well as to the understanding of turbulent pair dispersion and scalar mixing. The scaling of C0 with the turbulence level is also investigated, and found to be in agreement with an existing model.

Pair dispersion in turbulence

We study the statistics of pair dispersion in two-dimensional turbulence. Direct numerical simulations show that the probability distribution function (pdf) of pair separations is in agreement with the Richardson prediction. The pdf of doubling times follows dimensional scaling and shows a long tail which is the signature of close approaches between particles initially seeded with a large separation. This phenomenon is related to the formation of fronts in passive scalar advection.

Turbulent pair dispersion and scalar diffusion

A method of treating turbulent pair dispersion and scalar diffusion is presented. Use is made of Kraichnan's form of Richardson's diffusion equation by relating the turbulent pair diffusivity to single-time Eulerian velocity statistics (which are presumed known) by means of a statistical independence hypothesis. In this procedure the diffusivity itself is coupled to solutions of the diffusivity equation in a self-consistent way.The method is applied to both two-and three-dimensional flow. In three-dimensional inertial-range and dissipative-range turbulence the turbulent pair diffusivity is determined and used to find the values of the coefficients of the scalar spectrum in the and k−1 ranges with good agreement with experiment. The Obukhov–Corrsin constant is found to be 0·49 and the Batchelor constant is √5. In two-dimensional turbulence the results are compared with constant-pressure balloon dispersion experiments. Results are also found for the rate of decay of scalar intensity in the special case where the initial scalar spectrum peaks in the inertial range.