The two-dimensional inverse energy cascade in a confined domain - Numerical and laboratory experiments
Abstract
A joint experimental and high resolution numerical study of two-dimensional (2-D) turbulence in a square domain is made. The experiments are performed in a horizontal layer of mercury, submitted to a vertical magnetic field to damp 3-D perturbations, and the flow is electrically driven by a network of 36 electrodes. A steady forcing is first applied in a 4 vortex mode, and an instability associated with the pairing of two vortices and the stretching of the two others at the periphery is observed, leading to a global rotation. In the case of a small scale forcing, the inverse energy cascade is limited at large scales, either by the finite size of the domain or the linear bottom friction. When this dissipation is predominant, k to the -5/3 power spectra are measured. When the effect of the confinement in the square box is important, a global rotation is observed. Near the transition between these two regimes, sudden random reversals of the rotation sense occur at very long periods of time.
- Publication:
-
5th Symposium on Turbulent Shear Flows
- Pub Date:
- 1985
- Bibcode:
- 1985stsf.procR..13S
- Keywords:
-
- Cascade Flow;
- Cavitation Flow;
- Turbulent Flow;
- Two Dimensional Flow;
- Energy Transfer;
- Flow Measurement;
- Navier-Stokes Equation;
- Numerical Flow Visualization;
- Vorticity;
- Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer