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A statistical state dynamics-based study of the structure and mechanism of large-scale motions in plane Poiseuille flow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2016

Brian F. Farrell ,
Petros J. Ioannou ,
Javier Jiménez ,
Navid C. Constantinou Open the ORCID record for Navid C. Constantinou [Opens in a new window] ,
Adrián Lozano-Durán  and
Marios-Andreas Nikolaidis
Brian F. Farrell
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Petros J. Ioannou*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, Zografos, Athens, 157 84, Greece
Javier Jiménez
Affiliation:
School of Aeronautics, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain
Navid C. Constantinou
Affiliation:
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 90293-0213, USA
Adrián Lozano-Durán
Affiliation:
School of Aeronautics, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain
Marios-Andreas Nikolaidis
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, Zografos, Athens, 157 84, Greece
*
†Email address for correspondence: pjioannou@phys.uoa.gr
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Abstract

The perspective of statistical state dynamics (SSD) has recently been applied to the study of mechanisms underlying turbulence in a variety of physical systems. An SSD is a dynamical system that evolves a representation of the statistical state of the system. An example of an SSD is the second-order cumulant closure referred to as stochastic structural stability theory (S3T), which has provided insight into the dynamics of wall turbulence, and specifically the emergence and maintenance of the roll/streak structure. S3T comprises a coupled set of equations for the streamwise mean and perturbation covariance, in which nonlinear interactions among the perturbations has been removed, restricting nonlinearity in the dynamics to that of the mean equation and the interaction between the mean and perturbation covariance. In this work, this quasi-linear restriction of the dynamics is used to study the structure and dynamics of turbulence in plane Poiseuille flow at moderately high Reynolds numbers in a closely related dynamical system, referred to as the restricted nonlinear (RNL) system. Simulations using this RNL system reveal that the essential features of wall-turbulence dynamics are retained. Consistent with previous analyses based on the S3T version of SSD, the RNL system spontaneously limits the support of its turbulence to a small set of streamwise Fourier components, giving rise to a naturally minimal representation of its turbulence dynamics. Although greatly simplified, this RNL turbulence exhibits natural-looking structures and statistics, albeit with quantitative differences from those in direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the full equations. Surprisingly, even when further truncation of the perturbation support to a single streamwise component is imposed, the RNL system continues to self-sustain turbulence with qualitatively realistic structure and dynamic properties. RNL turbulence at the Reynolds numbers studied is dominated by the roll/streak structure in the buffer layer and similar very large-scale structure (VLSM) in the outer layer. In this work, diagnostics of the structure, spectrum and energetics of RNL and DNS turbulence are used to demonstrate that the roll/streak dynamics supporting the turbulence in the buffer and logarithmic layer is essentially similar in RNL and DNS.

JFM classification

Boundary Layers: Boundary layer structure Instability: Parametric instability Turbulent Flows: Turbulence theory
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 809 , 25 December 2016 , pp. 290 - 315
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Copyright
© 2016 Cambridge University Press 

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Footnotes

‡

Present address: Center for Turbulence Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

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