86 research outputs found
Universality of anisotropic fluctuations from numerical simulations of turbulent flows
We present new results from a direct numerical simulation of a three
dimensional homogeneous Rayleigh-Benard system (HRB), i.e. a convective cell
with an imposed linear mean temperature profile along the vertical direction.
We measure the SO(3)-decomposition of both velocity structure functions and
buoyancy terms. We give a dimensional prediction for the values of the
anisotropic scaling exponents in this Rayleigh-Benard systems. Measured scaling
does not follow dimensional estimate, while a better agreement can be found
with the anisotropic scaling of a different system, the random-Kolmogorov-flow
(RKF). Our findings support the conclusion that scaling properties of
anisotropic fluctuations are universal, i.e. independent of the forcing
mechanism sustaining the turbulent flow.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Velocity gradients statistics along particle trajectories in turbulent flows: the refined similarity hypothesis in the Lagrangian frame
We present an investigation of the statistics of velocity gradient related
quantities, in particluar energy dissipation rate and enstrophy, along the
trajectories of fluid tracers and of heavy/light particles advected by a
homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flow. The Refined Similarity Hypothesis
(RSH) proposed by Kolmogorov and Oboukhov in 1962 is rephrased in the
Lagrangian context and then tested along the particle trajectories. The study
is performed on state-of-the-art numerical data resulting from numerical
simulations up to Re~400 with 2048^3 collocation points. When particles have
small inertia, we show that the Lagrangian formulation of the RSH is well
verified for time lags larger than the typical response time of the particle.
In contrast, in the large inertia limit when the particle response time
approaches the integral-time-scale of the flow, particles behave nearly
ballistic, and the Eulerian formulation of RSH holds in the inertial-range.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures; Physical Review E (accepted Dec 7, 2009
Exponentially growing solutions in homogeneous Rayleigh-Benard convection
It is shown that homogeneous Rayleigh-Benard flow, i.e., Rayleigh-Benard
turbulence with periodic boundary conditions in all directions and a volume
forcing of the temperature field by a mean gradient, has a family of exact,
exponentially growing, separable solutions of the full non-linear system of
equations. These solutions are clearly manifest in numerical simulations above
a computable critical value of the Rayleigh number. In our numerical
simulations they are subject to secondary numerical noise and resolution
dependent instabilities that limit their growth to produce statistically steady
turbulent transport.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. E - rapid
communication
Lagrangian filtered density function for LES-based stochastic modelling of turbulent dispersed flows
The Eulerian-Lagrangian approach based on Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) is one
of the most promising and viable numerical tools to study turbulent dispersed
flows when the computational cost of Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) becomes
too expensive. The applicability of this approach is however limited if the
effects of the Sub-Grid Scales (SGS) of the flow on particle dynamics are
neglected. In this paper, we propose to take these effects into account by
means of a Lagrangian stochastic SGS model for the equations of particle
motion. The model extends to particle-laden flows the velocity-filtered density
function method originally developed for reactive flows. The underlying
filtered density function is simulated through a Lagrangian Monte Carlo
procedure that solves for a set of Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs)
along individual particle trajectories. The resulting model is tested for the
reference case of turbulent channel flow, using a hybrid algorithm in which the
fluid velocity field is provided by LES and then used to advance the SDEs in
time. The model consistency is assessed in the limit of particles with zero
inertia, when "duplicate fields" are available from both the Eulerian LES and
the Lagrangian tracking. Tests with inertial particles were performed to
examine the capability of the model to capture particle preferential
concentration and near-wall segregation. Upon comparison with DNS-based
statistics, our results show improved accuracy and considerably reduced errors
with respect to the case in which no SGS model is used in the equations of
particle motion
Matched filters for coalescing binaries detection on massively parallel computers
We discuss some computational problems associated to matched filtering of
experimental signals from gravitational wave interferometric detectors in a
parallel-processing environment. We then specialize our discussion to the use
of the APEmille and apeNEXT processors for this task. Finally, we accurately
estimate the performance of an APEmille system on a computational load
appropriate for the LIGO and VIRGO experiments, and extrapolate our results to
apeNEXT.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure
Evidences of Bolgiano scaling in 3D Rayleigh-Benard convection
We present new results from high-resolution high-statistics direct numerical
simulations of a tri-dimensional convective cell. We test the fundamental
physical picture of the presence of both a Bolgiano-like and a Kolmogorov-like
regime. We find that the dimensional predictions for these two distinct regimes
(characterized respectively by an active and passive role of the temperature
field) are consistent with our measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Non-Oberbeck-Boussinesq effects in turbulent thermal convection in ethane close to the critical point
As shown in earlier work (Ahlers et al., J. Fluid Mech. 569, p.409 (2006)),
non-Oberbeck Boussinesq (NOB) corrections to the center temperature in
turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection in water and also in glycerol are governed
by the temperature dependences of the kinematic viscosity and the thermal
diffusion coefficient. If the working fluid is ethane close to the critical
point the origin of non-Oberbeck-Boussinesq corrections is very different, as
will be shown in the present paper. Namely, the main origin of NOB corrections
then lies in the strong temperature dependence of the isobaric thermal
expansion coefficient \beta(T). More precisely, it is the nonlinear
T-dependence of the density \rho(T) in the buoyancy force which causes another
type of NOB effect. We demonstrate that through a combination of experimental,
numerical, and theoretical work, the latter in the framework of the extended
Prandtl-Blasius boundary layer theory developed in Ahlers et al., J. Fluid
Mech. 569, p.409 (2006). The latter comes to its limits, if the temperature
dependence of the thermal expension coefficient \beta(T) is significant.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, 3 table
Acceleration of heavy and light particles in turbulence: comparison between experiments and direct numerical simulations
We compare experimental data and numerical simulations for the dynamics of
inertial particles with finite density in turbulence. In the experiment,
bubbles and solid particles are optically tracked in a turbulent flow of water
using an Extended Laser Doppler Velocimetry technique. The probability density
functions (PDF) of particle accelerations and their auto-correlation in time
are computed. Numerical results are obtained from a direct numerical simulation
in which a suspension of passive pointwise particles is tracked, with the same
finite density and the same response time as in the experiment. We observe a
good agreement for both the variance of acceleration and the autocorrelation
timescale of the dynamics; small discrepancies on the shape of the acceleration
PDF are observed. We discuss the effects induced by the finite size of the
particles, not taken into account in the present numerical simulations.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Universal intermittent properties of particle trajectories in highly turbulent flows
We present a collection of eight data sets, from state-of-the-art experiments
and numerical simulations on turbulent velocity statistics along particle
trajectories obtained in different flows with Reynolds numbers in the range
. Lagrangian structure functions from all data sets
are found to collapse onto each other on a wide range of time lags, revealing a
universal statistics, and calling for a unified theoretical description.
Parisi-Frisch Multifractal theory, suitable extended to the dissipative scales
and to the Lagrangian domain, is found to capture intermittency of velocity
statistics over the whole three decades of temporal scales here investigated.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; content changed, references update
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