Anisotropy freezing of passive scalar fields in anisotropy growing homogeneous turbulence
Abstract
We study the mixing of a passive scalar in homogeneous turbulent flow with and without anisotropic external force. It is assumed that no scalar source exists and the scalar spectrum at an initial time instant t0 is given by the form C k2+o (k2) at the wave number k →0 , where C is independent of k . We have performed direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of the mixing, in which the initial integral length scales of the scalar field are comparable to those of the velocity field and the Schmidt number is unity. The DNSs show that even though the large-scale anisotropy of the velocity field grows with time owing to the external force, its scalar field counterpart remains almost unchanged, i.e., frozen with respect to time, in a state where the scalar field evolves in a self-similar manner. The degree of the anisotropy of each of the velocity and scalar fields is measured by the ratios of the integral length scales in different Cartesian directions. The DNSs also suggest that the scalar spectrum keeps the form C k2+o (k2) at small k for time t (≥t0) , and that C is time independent.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Fluids
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.014604
- Bibcode:
- 2020PhRvF...5a4604Y