Puff turbulence in the limit of strong buoyancy

We provide a numerical validation of a recently proposed phenomenological theory to characterize the space-time statistical properties of a turbulent puff, both in terms of bulk properties, such as the mean velocity, temperature and size, and scaling laws for velocity and temperature differences both in the viscous and in the inertial range of scales. In particular, apart from the more classical shear-dominated puff turbulence, our main focus is on the recently discovered new regime where turbulent fluctuations are dominated by buoyancy. The theory is based on an adiabaticity hypothesis which assumes that small-scale turbulent fluctuations rapidly relax to the slower large-scale dynamics, leading to a generalization of the classical Kolmogorov and Kolmogorov-Obukhov-Corrsin theories for a turbulent puff hosting a scalar field. We validate our theory by means of massive direct numerical simulations finding excellent agreement. This article is part of the theme issue 'Scaling the turbulence edifice (part 2)'

Passive control of the flow around unsteady aerofoils using a self-activated deployable flap

Self-activated feathers are used by many birds to adapt their wing characteristics to the sudden change of flight incidence angle. In particular, dorsal feathers are believed to pop-up as a consequence of unsteady flow separation and to interact with the flow to palliate the sudden stall breakdown typical of dynamic stall. Inspired by the adaptive character of birds feathers, some authors have envisaged the potential benefits of using of flexible flaps mounted on aerodynamic surfaces to counteract the negative aerodynamic effects associated with dynamic stall. This contribution explores more in depth the physical mechanisms that play a role in the modification of the unsteady flow field generated by a NACA0020 aerofoil equipped with an elastically mounted flap undergoing a specific ramp-up manoeuvre. We discuss the design of flaps that limit the severity of the dynamic stall breakdown by increasing the value of the lift overshoot also smoothing its abrupt decay in time. A detailed analysis on the modification of the turbulent and unsteady vorticity field due to the flap flow interaction during the ramp-up motion is also provided to explain the more benign aerodynamic response obtained when the flap is in use

Turbulent channel flow over an anisotropic porous wall - drag increase and reduction

The effect of the variations of the permeability tensor on the close-to-the-wall behaviour of a turbulent channel flow bounded by porous walls is explored using a set of direct numerical simulations. It is found that the total drag can be either reduced or increased by more than 20 % by adjusting the permeability directional properties. Drag reduction is achieved for the case of materials with permeability in the vertical direction lower than the one in the wall-parallel planes. This configuration limits the wall-normal velocity at the interface while promoting an increase of the tangential slip velocity leading to an almost ‘one-component’ turbulence where the low- and high-speed streak coherence is strongly enhanced. On the other hand, strong drag increase is found when high wall-normal and low wall-parallel permeabilities are prescribed. In this condition, the enhancement of the wall-normal fluctuations due to the reduced wall-blocking effect triggers the onset of structures which are strongly correlated in the spanwise direction, a phenomenon observed by other authors in flows over isotropic porous layers or over ribletted walls with large protrusion heights. The use of anisotropic porous walls for drag reduction is particularly attractive since equal gains can be achieved at different Reynolds numbers by rescaling the magnitude of the permeability only

On-Off Pumping for Drag Reduction in a Turbulent Channel Flow

We show that the energy required by a turbulent flow to displace a given amount of fluid through a straight duct in a given time interval can be reduced by modulating in time the pumping power. The control strategy is hybrid: it is passive, as it requires neither a control system nor control energy, but it manipulates how pumping energy is delivered to the system (as in active techniques) to increase the pumping efficiency. Our control employs a temporally periodic pumping pattern, where a short and intense acceleration (in which the pumping system is on) followed by a longer deceleration (in which the pumping system is off) makes the flow alternately visit a quasi-laminar and a turbulent state. The computational study is for a plane channel flow, and employs direct numerical simulations, which present specific computational challenges, for example the highly varying instantaneous value of the Reynolds number, and the importance of discretisation effects. Particular care is devoted to a meaningful definition of drag reduction in the present context. The ability of the forcing to yield significant savings is demonstrated. Since only a small portion of the parameter space is investigated, the best performance of the control technique remains to be assessed

The PELskin project-part V: towards the control of the flow around aerofoils at high angle of attack using a self-activated deployable flap

During the flight of birds, it is often possible to notice that some of the primaries and covert feathers on the upper side of the wing pop-up under critical flight conditions, such as the landing approach or when stalking their prey (see Fig. 1) . It is often conjectured that the feathers pop up plays an aerodynamic role by limiting the spread of flow separation . A combined experimental and numerical study was conducted to shed some light on the physical mechanism determining the feathers self actuation and their effective role in controlling the flow field in nominally stalled conditions. In particular, we have considered a NACA0020 aerofoil, equipped with a flexible flap at low chord Reynolds numbers. A parametric study has been conducted on the effects of the length, natural frequency, and position of the flap. A configuration with a single flap hinged on the suction side at 70 % of the chord size c (from the leading edge), with a length of (Formula presented.) matching the shedding frequency of vortices at stall condition has been found to be optimum in delivering maximum aerodynamic efficiency and lift gains. Flow evolution both during a ramp-up motion (incidence angle from (Formula presented.) to (Formula presented.) with a reduced frequency of (Formula presented.), (Formula presented.) being the free stream velocity magnitude), and at a static stalled condition ((Formula presented.)) were analysed with and without the flap. A significant increase of the mean lift after a ramp-up manoeuvre is observed in presence of the flap. Stall dynamics (i.e., lift overshoot and oscillations) are altered and the simulations reveal a periodic re-generation cycle composed of a leading edge vortex that lift the flap during his passage, and an ejection generated by the relaxing of the flap in its equilibrium position. The flap movement in turns avoid the interaction between leading and trailing edge vortices when lift up and push the trailing edge vortex downstream when relaxing back. This cyclic behaviour is clearly shown by the periodic variation of the lift about the average value, and also from the periodic motion of the flap. A comparison with the experiments shows a similar but somewhat higher non-dimensional frequency of the flap oscillation. By assuming that the cycle frequency scales inversely with the boundary layer thickness, one can explain the higher frequencies observed in the experiments which were run at a Reynolds number about one order of magnitude higher than in the simulations. In addition, in experiments the periodic re-generation cycle decays after 3–4 periods ultimately leading to the full stall of the aerofoil. In contrast, the 2D simulations show that the cycle can become self-sustained without any decay when the flap parameters are accurately tuned

Transient inverse energy cascade in free surface turbulence

We study the statistics of free-surface turbulence at large Reynolds numbers produced by direct numerical simulations in a fluid layer at different thickness with fixed characteristic forcing scale. We observe the production of a transient inverse cascade, with a duration which depends on the thickness of the layer, followed by a transition to three-dimensional turbulence initially produced close to the bottom, no-slip boundary. By switching off the forcing, we study the decaying turbulent regime and we find that it cannot be described by an exponential law. Our results show that boundary conditions play a fundamental role in the nature of turbulence produced in thin layers and give limits on the conditions to produce a two-dimensional phenomenology.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Role of barriers in the airborne spread of virus-containing droplets: A study based on high-resolution direct numerical simulations

State-of-the-art direct numerical simulations are exploited to study the role of barriers on the airborne spread of virus-containing droplets. Our study is motivated by recent findings pointing to the key role of turbulence in dictating the final fate of virus-containing droplets in violent human exhalations. Here, all active scales of motion have been explicitly taken into account, including their interplay with the droplet evaporation process occurring once droplets are emitted in a drier ambient air, and accounting for the time-varying droplet inertia due to the water loss via evaporation. We show that barriers commonly used to mitigate the airborne spread of the virus cause nontrivial dynamical effects influencing the final reach of the virus-containing droplets, not always being beneficial to this aim. These conclusions do depend on the relative humidity of the ambient condition, and in particular whether the ambient humidity is above or below the so-called efflorescence relative humidity. Our findings provide a physically based answer to the question on how effective barriers are to protect people from airborne virus transmission in indoor environments