Direct assessment of Kolmogorov's first refined similarity hypothesis

Lawson, John M., Bodenschatz, Eberhard, Knutsen, Anna N., Dawson, James R. and Worth, Nicholas A. (2019) Direct assessment of Kolmogorov's first refined similarity hypothesis. Physical Review Fluids, 4 (2), 1-7, [022601]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevFluids.4.022601).

Abstract

Using volumetric velocity data from a turbulent laboratory water flow and numerical simulations of homogeneous, isotropic turbulence, we present a direct experimental and numerical assessment of Kolmogorov's first refined similarity hypothesis based on three-dimensional measurements of the local energy dissipation rate ϵr measured at dissipative scales r. We focus on the properties of the stochastic variables V_L=Δu(r)/(rϵ_r)1/3 and VT=Δv(r)/(rϵ_r)1/3, where Δu(r) and Δv(r) are longitudinal and transverse velocity increments. Over one order of magnitude of scales r within the dissipative range, the distributions of V_L and V_T from both experiment and simulation collapse when parametrized by a suitably defined local Reynolds number, providing conclusive experimental evidence in support of the first refined similarity hypothesis and its universality.

This record has no associated files available for download.

Contributors

Author: John M. Lawson

Download statistics