The cascade character of the growth of turbulent vortices

The structure of discrete large-scale vortices in a turbulent boundary flow is modeled using a mininal number of assumptions. It is shown that if the waves generated by the vortex propagate transversely in relation to the flow then the vortex growth is of a cascade character, which is related to the stepwise decrease in the rotation frequency. The model also accounts for the maxima in the spectra of turbulent pulsations and for the increase in the number of maxima with an increase in the Reynolds number. Finally, characteristic pulsation frequencies are approximately defined for a flow in a hydraulically smooth pipe, exhibiting good agreement with available experimental results.