657 research outputs found
Cumulant expansions for atmospheric flows
The equations governing atmospheric flows are nonlinear. Consequently, the
hierarchy of cumulant equations is not closed. But because atmospheric flows
are inhomogeneous and anisotropic, the nonlinearity may manifest itself only
weakly through interactions of mean fields with disturbances such as thermals
or eddies. In such situations, truncations of the hierarchy of cumulant
equations hold promise as a closure strategy.
We review how truncations at second order can be used to model and elucidate
the dynamics of atmospheric flows. Two examples are considered. First, we study
the growth of a dry convective boundary layer, which is heated from below,
leading to turbulent upward energy transport and growth of the boundary layer.
We demonstrate that a quasilinear truncation of the equations of motion, in
which interactions of disturbances among each other are neglected but
interactions with mean fields are taken into account, can capture the growth of
the convective boundary layer even if it does not capture important turbulent
transport terms. Second, we study the evolution of two-dimensional large-scale
waves representing waves in Earth's upper atmosphere. We demonstrate that a
cumulant expansion truncated at second order (CE2) can capture the evolution of
such waves and their nonlinear interaction with the mean flow in some
circumstances, for example, when the wave amplitude is small enough or the
planetary rotation rate is large enough. However, CE2 fails to capture the flow
evolution when nonlinear eddy--eddy interactions in surf zones become
important. Higher-order closures can capture these missing interactions.
The results point to new ways in which the dynamics of turbulent boundary
layers may be represented in climate models, and they illustrate different
classes of nonlinear processes that can control wave dissipation and momentum
fluxes in the troposphere.Comment: 43 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the New Journal of
Physic
On the Eulerian Large Eddy Simulation of disperse phase flows: an asymptotic preserving scheme for small Stokes number flows
In the present work, the Eulerian Large Eddy Simulation of dilute disperse
phase flows is investigated. By highlighting the main advantages and drawbacks
of the available approaches in the literature, a choice is made in terms of
modelling: a Fokker-Planck-like filtered kinetic equation proposed by Zaichik
et al. 2009 and a Kinetic-Based Moment Method (KBMM) based on a Gaussian
closure for the NDF proposed by Vie et al. 2014. The resulting Euler-like
system of equations is able to reproduce the dynamics of particles for small to
moderate Stokes number flows, given a LES model for the gaseous phase, and is
representative of the generic difficulties of such models. Indeed, it
encounters strong constraints in terms of numerics in the small Stokes number
limit, which can lead to a degeneracy of the accuracy of standard numerical
methods. These constraints are: 1/as the resulting sound speed is inversely
proportional to the Stokes number, it is highly CFL-constraining, and 2/the
system tends to an advection-diffusion limit equation on the number density
that has to be properly approximated by the designed scheme used for the whole
range of Stokes numbers. Then, the present work proposes a numerical scheme
that is able to handle both. Relying on the ideas introduced in a different
context by Chalons et al. 2013: a Lagrange-Projection, a relaxation formulation
and a HLLC scheme with source terms, we extend the approach to a singular flux
as well as properly handle the energy equation. The final scheme is proven to
be Asymptotic-Preserving on 1D cases comparing to either converged or
analytical solutions and can easily be extended to multidimensional
configurations, thus setting the path for realistic applications
Review of Summation-by-parts schemes for initial-boundary-value problems
High-order finite difference methods are efficient, easy to program, scales
well in multiple dimensions and can be modified locally for various reasons
(such as shock treatment for example). The main drawback have been the
complicated and sometimes even mysterious stability treatment at boundaries and
interfaces required for a stable scheme. The research on summation-by-parts
operators and weak boundary conditions during the last 20 years have removed
this drawback and now reached a mature state. It is now possible to construct
stable and high order accurate multi-block finite difference schemes in a
systematic building-block-like manner. In this paper we will review this
development, point out the main contributions and speculate about the next
lines of research in this area
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