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On properties of fluid turbulence along streamlines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2010

LIPO WANG
LIPO WANG*
Affiliation:
Institut für Technische Verbrennung, RWTH-Aachen, 52056 Aachen, Germany
*
†Present address: UM-SJTU Joint Institute, ShangHai JiaoTong University, 800 Dong Chuan Road, 200240 Shanghai, China. Email address for correspondence: wang@itv.rwth-aachen.de
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Abstract

Geometrical and dynamical properties of turbulent flows have been investigated by streamline segment analysis. Starting from each grid point, a streamline segment is defined as the part of its streamline bounded by the two adjacent extremal points of the velocity magnitude. Physically the streamline segments can be extended into a more meaningful concept, namely the streamtube segments, which are non-overlapping and space filling. This decomposition of the flow allows for new insights into vector-related statistics in turbulence. According to the variation of velocity, the streamline segments can be sorted into positive and negative segments. The overall properties of turbulent flows can be newly understood and explained from the statistics of these segments with simple structures; for instance, the negative skewness of the velocity derivative becomes naturally a kinematic outcome. Furthermore, from direct numerical simulations conditional statistics of pressure and kinetic energy dissipation along the streamline segments are evaluated and discussed.

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 648 , 10 April 2010 , pp. 183 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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