scholarly journals On the shape of resolvent modes in wall-bounded turbulence

2019 ◽  
Vol 877 ◽  
pp. 682-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott T. M. Dawson ◽  
Beverley J. McKeon

This work develops a methodology for approximating the shape of leading resolvent modes for incompressible, quasi-parallel, shear-driven turbulent flows using prescribed analytic functions. We demonstrate that these functions, which arise from the consideration of wavepacket pseudoeigenmodes of simplified linear operators (Trefethen, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, vol. 461, 2005, pp. 3099–3122. The Royal Society), give an accurate approximation for the energetically dominant wall-normal vorticity component of a class of nominally wall-detached modes that are centred about the critical layer. We validate our method on a model operator related to the Squire equation, and show for this simplified case how wavepacket pseudomodes relate to truncated asymptotic expansions of Airy functions. Following the framework developed in McKeon & Sharma (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 658, 2010, pp. 336–382), we next apply a sequence of simplifications to the resolvent formulation of the Navier–Stokes equations to arrive at a scalar differential operator that is amenable to such analysis. The first simplification decomposes the resolvent operator into Orr–Sommerfeld and Squire suboperators, following Rosenberg & McKeon (Fluid Dyn. Res., vol. 51, 2019, 011401). The second simplification relates the leading resolvent response modes of the Orr–Sommerfeld suboperator to those of a simplified scalar differential operator – which is the Squire operator equipped with a non-standard inner product. This characterisation provides a mathematical framework for understanding the origin of leading resolvent mode shapes for the incompressible Navier–Stokes resolvent operator, and allows for rapid estimation of dominant resolvent mode characteristics without the need for operator discretisation or large numerical computations. We explore regions of validity for this method, and show that it can predict resolvent response mode shape (though not necessary the corresponding resolvent gain) over a wide range of spatial wavenumbers and temporal frequencies. In particular, we find that our method remains relatively accurate even when the modes have some amount of ‘attachment’ to the wall, and that that the region of validity contains the regions in parameter space where large-scale and very-large-scale motions typically reside. We relate these findings to classical lift-up and Orr amplification mechanisms in shear-driven flows.

Author(s):  
Paul Ranford

Lucasian Professor Sir George Gabriel Stokes was appointed joint-Secretary of the Royal Society in 1854, a post he held for the unprecedented period of 31 years, relinquishing the role when he succeeded T.H. Huxley as President in 1885. An eminent scientist of the Victorian era, Stokes explained fluorescence (he also coined the word) and his hydrodynamical formulae (the ‘Navier–Stokes equations’) remain ubiquitous today in the physics of any phenomenon involving fluid flows, from pipelines to glaciers to large-scale atmospheric perturbations. He also made seminal advances in optics and mathematics, and formulae that bear his name remain widely used today. The historiography however appears to understate Stokes's significant impact on science as unacknowledged collaborator on a wide range of scientific developments. His scientific peers regarded him as a mentor, advisor, designer of crucial experiments and, as editor of the Royal Society's scientific journals, arbiter of the standards of excellence in scientific communication to be attained before publication would be considered. Three brief case studies on Stokes's correspondence with Lord Kelvin, Sir William Crookes and the chemist Arthur Smithells exemplify how his impact was conveyed through the work of other scientists. This paper also begins consideration of why the character and worldview of Stokes led him to eschew personal reputation and profit for the sake of science and the Royal Society, and of how the development of the discipline of history of science has impacted on historiography relating to Stokes and others. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Stokes at 200 (Part 1)’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 856 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Borgnino ◽  
G. Boffetta ◽  
F. De Lillo ◽  
M. Cencini

We study the dynamics and the statistics of dilute suspensions of gyrotactic swimmers, a model for many aquatic motile microorganisms. By means of extensive numerical simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations at different Reynolds numbers, we investigate preferential sampling and small-scale clustering as a function of the swimming (stability and speed) and shape parameters, considering in particular the limits of spherical and rod-like particles. While spherical swimmers preferentially sample local downwelling flow, for elongated swimmers we observe a transition from downwelling to upwelling regions at sufficiently high swimming speed. The spatial distribution of both spherical and elongated swimmers is found to be fractal at small scales in a wide range of swimming parameters. The direct comparison between the different shapes shows that spherical swimmers are more clusterized at small stability and speed numbers, while for large values of the parameters elongated cells concentrate more. The relevance of our results for phytoplankton swimming in the ocean is briefly discussed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 799 ◽  
pp. 246-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Seshasayanan ◽  
A. Alexakis

We study the linear stage of the dynamo instability of a turbulent two-dimensional flow with three components $(u(x,y,t),v(x,y,t),w(x,y,t))$ that is sometimes referred to as a 2.5-dimensional (2.5-D) flow. The flow evolves based on the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations in the presence of a large-scale drag force that leads to the steady state of a turbulent inverse cascade. These flows provide an approximation to very fast rotating flows often observed in nature. The low dimensionality of the system allows for the realization of a large number of numerical simulations and thus the investigation of a wide range of fluid Reynolds numbers $Re$, magnetic Reynolds numbers $Rm$ and forcing length scales. This allows for the examination of dynamo properties at different limits that cannot be achieved with three-dimensional simulations. We examine dynamos for both large and small magnetic Prandtl-number turbulent flows $Pm=Rm/Re$, close to and away from the dynamo onset, as well as dynamos in the presence of scale separation. In particular, we determine the properties of the dynamo onset as a function of $Re$ and the asymptotic behaviour in the large $Rm$ limit. We are thus able to give a complete description of the dynamo properties of these turbulent 2.5-D flows.


2019 ◽  
Vol 873 ◽  
pp. 89-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anagha Madhusudanan ◽  
Simon. J. Illingworth ◽  
Ivan Marusic

The wall-normal extent of the large-scale structures modelled by the linearized Navier–Stokes equations subject to stochastic forcing is directly compared to direct numerical simulation (DNS) data. A turbulent channel flow at a friction Reynolds number of $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}=2000$ is considered. We use the two-dimensional (2-D) linear coherence spectrum (LCS) to perform the comparison over a wide range of energy-carrying streamwise and spanwise length scales. The study of the 2-D LCS from DNS indicates the presence of large-scale structures that are coherent over large wall-normal distances and that are self-similar. We find that, with the addition of an eddy viscosity profile, these features of the large-scale structures are captured by the linearized equations, except in the region close to the wall. To further study this coherence, a coherence-based estimation technique, spectral linear stochastic estimation, is used to build linear estimators from the linearized Navier–Stokes equations. The estimator uses the instantaneous streamwise velocity field or the 2-D streamwise energy spectrum at one wall-normal location (obtained from DNS) to predict the same quantity at a different wall-normal location. We find that the addition of an eddy viscosity profile significantly improves the estimation.


Fluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloé Mimeau ◽  
Iraj Mortazavi

This review paper presents an overview of Vortex Methods for flow simulation and their different sub-approaches, from their creation to the present. Particle methods distinguish themselves by their intuitive and natural description of the fluid flow as well as their low numerical dissipation and their stability. Vortex methods belong to Lagrangian approaches and allow us to solve the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in their velocity-vorticity formulation. In the last three decades, the wide range of research works performed on these methods allowed us to highlight their robustness and accuracy while providing efficient computational algorithms and a solid mathematical framework. On the other hand, many efforts have been devoted to overcoming their main intrinsic difficulties, mostly relying on the treatment of the boundary conditions and the distortion of particle distribution. The present review aims to describe the Vortex methods by following their chronological evolution and provides for each step of their development the mathematical framework, the strengths and limits as well as references to applications and numerical simulations. The paper ends with a presentation of some challenging and very recent works based on Vortex methods and successfully applied to problems such as hydrodynamics, turbulent wake dynamics, sediment or porous flows.


2009 ◽  
Vol 625 ◽  
pp. 75-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. RUBIO ◽  
J. M. LOPEZ ◽  
F. MARQUES

Thermal convection in a rotating cylinder near onset is investigated using direct numerical simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations with the Boussinesq approximation in a regime dominated by the Coriolis force. For thermal driving too small to support convection throughout the entire cell, convection sets in as alternating pairs of hot and cold plumes in the sidewall boundary layer, the so-called wall modes of rotating convection. We subject the wall modes to small amplitude harmonic modulations of the rotation rate over a wide range of frequencies. The modulations produce harmonic Ekman boundary layers at the top and bottom lids as well as a Stokes boundary layer at the sidewall. These boundary layers drive a time-periodic large-scale circulation that interacts with the wall-localized thermal plumes in a non-trivial manner. The resultant phenomena include a substantial shift in the onset of wall-mode convection to higher temperature differences for a broad band of frequencies, as well as a significant alteration of the precession rate of the wall mode at very high modulation frequencies due to the mean azimuthal streaming flow resulting from the modulations.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 936-943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. F. Dong ◽  
M. A. Ebadian

This paper numerically investigates the effects of buoyancy on fully developed laminar flow in a curved duct with an elliptic cross section. The flow of Newtonian fluids is assumed steady in terms of Boussinesq approximation. The curved elliptic duct is subjected to thermal boundary conditions of axially uniform heat flux and peripherally uniform wall temperature. The numerically generated boundary-fitted coordinate system is applied to discretize the solution domain of the elliptic duct, and the Navier-Stokes equations and the energy equation, including the curvature ratio, are solved by use of the control volume-based finite difference method. The solution covers a wide range of curvature ratios, and Dean and Grashof numbers. The results presented are displayed graphically and in tabular form to illustrate the buoyancy effect. It is further shown that buoyancy acts to increase both the Nusselt number and the friction factor and changes the distribution of the velocity and the temperature. The results for the curved circular duct with and without buoyancy are compared with the data available in the open literature for all cases. Also compared with the published data are the results of laminar flow in a curved elliptic duct, and very good agreement is obtained.


1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (4) ◽  
pp. 930-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Mosher ◽  
D. W. Childs

This research investigates the effect of varying the concentric recess pressure ratio of hybrid (combination hydrostatic and hydrodynamic) bearings to be used in high-speed, high-pressure applications. Bearing flowrate, load capacity, torque, rotordynamic coefficients, and whirl frequency ratio are examined to determine the concentric, recess-pressure ratio which yields optimum bearing load capacity and dynamic stiffness. An analytical model, using two-dimensional bulk-flow Navier-Stokes equations and anchored by experimental test results, is used to examine bearing performance over a wide range of concentric recess pressure ratios. Typically, a concentric recess pressure ratio of 0.50 is used to obtain maximum bearing load capacity. This analysis reveals that theoretical optimum bearing performance occurs for a pressure ratio near 0.40, while experimental results indicate the optimum value to he somewhat higher than 0.45. This research demonstrates the ability to analytically investigate hybrid bearings and shows the need for more hybrid-bearing experimental data.


1996 ◽  
Vol 310 ◽  
pp. 139-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Kerr

Using direct simulations of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with rigid upper and lower boundaries at fixed temperature and periodic sidewalls, scaling with respect to Rayleigh number is determined. At large aspect ratio (6:6:1) on meshes up to 288 × 288 × 96, a single scaling regime consistent with the properties of ‘hard’ convective turbulence is found for Pr = 0.7 between Ra = 5 × 104 and Ra = 2 × 107. The properties of this regime include Nu ∼ RaβT with βT = 0.28 ≈ 2/7, exponential temperature distributions in the centre of the cell, and velocity and temperature scales consistent with experimental measurements. Two velocity boundary-layer thicknesses are identified, one outside the thermal boundary layer that scales as Ra−1/7 and the other within it that scales as Ra−3/7. Large-scale shears are not observed; instead, strong local boundary-layer shears are observed in regions between incoming plumes and an outgoing network of buoyant sheets. At the highest Rayleigh number, there is a decade where the energy spectra are close to k−5/3 and temperature variance spectra are noticeably less steep. It is argued that taken together this is good evidence for ‘hard’ turbulence, even if individually each of these properties might have alternative explanations.


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