Numerical investigation of turbulent/non-turbulent interface

Cocconi, Giacomo (2013) Numerical investigation of turbulent/non-turbulent interface. [Laurea magistrale], Università di Bologna, Corso di Studio in Ingegneria aerospaziale [LM-DM270] - Forli'
Documenti full-text disponibili:
[img]
Anteprima
Documento PDF
Download (5MB) | Anteprima

Abstract

The subject of this work is the diffusion of turbulence in a non-turbulent flow. Such phenomenon can be found in almost every practical case of turbulent flow: all types of shear flows (wakes, jet, boundary layers) present some boundary between turbulence and the non-turbulent surround; all transients from a laminar flow to turbulence must account for turbulent diffusion; mixing of flows often involve the injection of a turbulent solution in a non-turbulent fluid. The mechanism of what Phillips defined as “the erosion by turbulence of the underlying non-turbulent flow”, is called entrainment. It is usually considered to operate on two scales with different mechanics. The small scale nibbling, which is the entrainment of fluid by viscous diffusion of turbulence, and the large scale engulfment, which entraps large volume of flow to be “digested” subsequently by viscous diffusion. The exact role of each of them in the overall entrainment rate is still not well understood, as it is the interplay between these two mechanics of diffusion. It is anyway accepted that the entrainment rate scales with large properties of the flow, while is not understood how the large scale inertial behavior can affect an intrinsically viscous phenomenon as diffusion of vorticity. In the present work we will address then the problem of turbulent diffusion through pseudo-spectral DNS simulations of the interface between a volume of decaying turbulence and quiescent flow. Such simulations will give us first hand measures of velocity, vorticity and strains fields at the interface; moreover the framework of unforced decaying turbulence will permit to study both spatial and temporal evolution of such fields. The analysis will evidence that for this kind of flows the overall production of enstrophy , i.e. the square of vorticity omega^2 , is dominated near the interface by the local inertial transport of “fresh vorticity” coming from the turbulent flow. Viscous diffusion instead plays a major role in enstrophy production in the outbound of the interface, where the nibbling process is dominant. The data from our simulation seems to confirm the theory of an inertially stirred viscous phenomenon proposed by others authors before and provides new data about the inertial diffusion of turbulence across the interface.

Abstract
Tipologia del documento
Tesi di laurea (Laurea magistrale)
Autore della tesi
Cocconi, Giacomo
Relatore della tesi
Correlatore della tesi
Scuola
Corso di studio
Ordinamento Cds
DM270
Parole chiave
Turbulent/non-turbulent interface, Entrainment, Numerical simulation
Data di discussione della Tesi
21 Marzo 2013
URI

Altri metadati

Statistica sui download

Gestione del documento: Visualizza il documento

^