Mean flow

Abstract: The paper reviews the problem of making numerical predictions of turbulent flow. It advocates that computational economy, range of applicability and physical realism are best served at present by turbulence models in which the magnitudes of two turbulence quantities, the turbulence kinetic energy k and its dissipation rate ϵ, are calculated from transport equations solved simultaneously with those governing the mean flow behaviour. The width of applicability of the model is demonstrated by reference to numerical computations of nine substantially different kinds of turbulent flow.

Abstract: Transition to turbulence in plane channel flow occurs even for conditions under which modes of the linearized dynamical system associated with the flow are stable. In this paper an attempt is made to understand this phenomena by finding the linear three‐dimensional perturbations that gain the most energy in a given time period. A complete set of perturbations, ordered by energy growth, is found using variational methods. The optimal perturbations are not of modal form, and those which grow the most resemble streamwise vortices, which divert the mean flow energy into streaks of streamwise velocity and enable the energy of the perturbation to grow by as much as three orders of magnitude. It is suggested that excitation of these perturbations facilitates transition from laminar to turbulent flow. The variational method used to find the optimal perturbations in a shear flow also allows construction of tight bounds on growth rate and determination of regions of absolute stability in which no perturbation growth is possible.

Abstract: The average settling velocity in homogeneous turbulence of a small rigid spherical particle, subject to a Stokes drag force, is shown to depend on the particle inertia and the free-fall terminal velocity in still fluid. With no inertia the particle settles on average at the same rate as in still fluid, assuming there is no mean flow. Particle inertia produces a bias in each trajectory towards regions of high strain rate or low vorticity, which affects the mean settling velocity. Results from a Gaussian random velocity field show that this produces an increased settling velocity.

Abstract: The analysis used by Taylor (1954) and based on the Reynolds analogy has been extended to describe the diffusion of marked fluid in the turbulent flow in an open channel The coefficient of longitudinal diffusion arising from the combined action of turbulent lateral diffusion and convection by the mean flow is computed to be 5·9uτh, where h is the depth of fluid and uτ the friction velocity This is in agreement with experiments described herein The laterla diffusion coefficient is found by experiment to be 0·23uτh, which is three times larger than the value obtained by the assumption of isotropy The same analysis can be used to describe the longitudinal dispersion of discrete particles, both of zero buoyancy and of finite buoyancy, and comparison is made with observations by Batchelor, Binnie & Phillips (1955) and Binnie & Phillips (1958)

Abstract: The role of stable shear flow in suppressing turbulence and turbulent transport in plasmas and neutral fluids is reviewed. Localized stable flow shear produces transport barriers whose extensive and highly successful utilization in fusion devices has made them the primary experimental technique for reducing and even eliminating the rapid turbulent losses of heat and particles that characterize fusion-grade plasmas. These transport barriers occur in different plasma regions with disparate physical properties and in a range of confining configurations, indicating a physical process of unusual universality. Flow shear suppresses turbulence by speeding up turbulent decorrelation. This is a robust feature of advection whenever the straining rate of stable mean flow shear exceeds the nonlinear decorrelation rate. Shear straining lowers correlation lengths in the direction of shear and reduces turbulent amplitudes. It also disrupts other processes that feed into or result from turbulence, including the linear instability of important collective modes, the transport-producing correlations between advecting fluid and advectants, and large-scale spatially connected avalanchelike transport events. In plasmas, regions of stable flow shear can be externally driven, but most frequently are created spontaneously in critical transitions between different plasma states. Shear suppression occurs in hydrodynamics and represents an extension of rapid-distortion theory to a long-time-scale nonlinear regime in two-dimensional stable shear flow. Examples from hydrodynamics include the emergence of coherent vortices in decaying two-dimensional Navier-Stokes turbulence and the reduction of turbulent transport in the stratosphere.