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Dissipation, enstrophy and pressure statistics in turbulence simulations at high Reynolds numbers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2012

P. K. Yeung ,
D. A. Donzis  and
K. R. Sreenivasan
P. K. Yeung*
Affiliation:
Schools of Aerospace Engineering, Computational Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
D. A. Donzis
Affiliation:
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
K. R. Sreenivasan
Affiliation:
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Physics Department, New York University, New York, NY 10012, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

We use data from well-resolved direct numerical simulations at Taylor-scale Reynolds numbers from 140 to 1000 to study the statistics of energy dissipation rate and enstrophy density (i.e. the square of local vorticity). Despite substantial variability in each of these variables, their extreme events not only scale in a similar manner but also progressively tend to occur spatially together as the Reynolds number increases. Though they possess non-Gaussian tails of enormous amplitudes, ratios of some characteristic properties can be closely linked to those of isotropic Gaussian random fields. We present results also on statistics of the pressure Laplacian and conditional mean pressure given both dissipation and enstrophy. At low Reynolds number intense negative pressure fluctuations are preferentially associated with rotation-dominated regions but at high Reynolds number both high dissipation and high enstrophy have similar effects.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Homogeneous turbulence Turbulent Flows: Intermittency Turbulent Flows: Turbulence simulation
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 700 , 10 June 2012 , pp. 5 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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