TY - JOUR
T1 - Turbulence in a Localized Puff in a Pipe
AU - Yakhot, Alexander
AU - Feldman, Yuri
AU - Moxey, David
AU - Sherwin, Spencer
AU - Karniadakis, George Em
N1 - Funding Information:
One of the authors (AY) would like to thank Dr. N. Nikitin (Moscow State University) for providing some DNS channel data and helpful comments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - We have performed direct numerical simulations of a spatio-temporally intermittent flow in a pipe for Rem = 2250. From previous experiments and simulations of pipe flow, this value has been estimated as a threshold when the average speeds of upstream and downstream fronts of a puff are identical (Barkley et al., Nature 526, 550–553, 2015; Barkley et al., 2015). We investigated the structure of an individual puff by considering three-dimensional snapshots over a long time period. To assimilate the velocity data, we applied a conditional sampling based on the location of the maximum energy of the transverse (turbulent) motion. Specifically, at each time instance, we followed a turbulent puff by a three-dimensional moving window centered at that location. We collected a snapshot-ensemble (10000 time instances, snapshots) of the velocity fields acquired over T = 2000D/U time interval inside the moving window. The cross-plane velocity field inside the puff showed the dynamics of a developing turbulence. In particular, the analysis of the cross-plane radial motion yielded the illustration of the production of turbulent kinetic energy directly from the mean flow. A snapshot-ensemble averaging over 10000 snapshots revealed azimuthally arranged large-scale (coherent) structures indicating near-wall sweep and ejection activity. The localized puff is about 15-17 pipe diameters long and the flow regime upstream of its upstream edge and downstream of its leading edge is almost laminar. In the near-wall region, despite the low Reynolds number, the turbulence statistics, in particular, the distribution of turbulence intensities, Reynolds shear stress, skewness and flatness factors, become similar to a fully-developed turbulent pipe flow in the vicinity of the puff upstream edge. In the puff core, the velocity profile becomes flat and logarithmic. It is shown that this “fully-developed turbulent flash” is very narrow being about two pipe diameters long.
AB - We have performed direct numerical simulations of a spatio-temporally intermittent flow in a pipe for Rem = 2250. From previous experiments and simulations of pipe flow, this value has been estimated as a threshold when the average speeds of upstream and downstream fronts of a puff are identical (Barkley et al., Nature 526, 550–553, 2015; Barkley et al., 2015). We investigated the structure of an individual puff by considering three-dimensional snapshots over a long time period. To assimilate the velocity data, we applied a conditional sampling based on the location of the maximum energy of the transverse (turbulent) motion. Specifically, at each time instance, we followed a turbulent puff by a three-dimensional moving window centered at that location. We collected a snapshot-ensemble (10000 time instances, snapshots) of the velocity fields acquired over T = 2000D/U time interval inside the moving window. The cross-plane velocity field inside the puff showed the dynamics of a developing turbulence. In particular, the analysis of the cross-plane radial motion yielded the illustration of the production of turbulent kinetic energy directly from the mean flow. A snapshot-ensemble averaging over 10000 snapshots revealed azimuthally arranged large-scale (coherent) structures indicating near-wall sweep and ejection activity. The localized puff is about 15-17 pipe diameters long and the flow regime upstream of its upstream edge and downstream of its leading edge is almost laminar. In the near-wall region, despite the low Reynolds number, the turbulence statistics, in particular, the distribution of turbulence intensities, Reynolds shear stress, skewness and flatness factors, become similar to a fully-developed turbulent pipe flow in the vicinity of the puff upstream edge. In the puff core, the velocity profile becomes flat and logarithmic. It is shown that this “fully-developed turbulent flash” is very narrow being about two pipe diameters long.
KW - Pipe flow
KW - Puff
KW - Transition to turbulence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060016841&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10494-018-0002-8
DO - 10.1007/s10494-018-0002-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85060016841
SN - 1386-6184
VL - 103
SP - 1
EP - 24
JO - Flow, Turbulence and Combustion
JF - Flow, Turbulence and Combustion
IS - 1
ER -