Bottlenecks in turbulent kinetic energy spectra predicted from structure function inflections using the von Kármán-Howarth equation

Gabriel G. Katul, Costantino Manes, Amilcare Porporato, Elie Bou-Zeid, Marcelo Chamecki

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

The compensated three-dimensional turbulent kinetic energy spectrum exhibits a peculiar bump at wave numbers in the vicinity of the crossover from inertial to viscous regimes due to pile up in turbulent kinetic energy, a phenomenon referred to as the bottleneck effect. The origin of this bump is linked to an inflection point in the second-order structure function in physical space caused by competition between vortex stretching and viscous diffusion mechanisms. The bump location and magnitude are reasonably predicted from a novel analytical solution to the Von Kármán-Howarth equation reflecting the competition between these two mechanisms and accounting for variable structure skewness with decreasing scale.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number033009
JournalPhysical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
Volume92
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 11 2015

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
  • Statistics and Probability
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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