Tomoaki Watanabe

A direct numerical simulation of a temporally developing mixing layer with a passive scalar transport is performed for various Schmidt numbers (Sc = 0.25, 1, 4, and 8). Turbulent mixing is investigated near the turbulent/non-turbulent interface (TNTI), which is a layer consisting of the turbulent sublayer (TSL) and viscous superlayer (VSL). The irrotational boundary, which is close to the outer edge of the TNTI layer, is detected as the isosurface of small vorticity magnitude. The movement of fl

The turbulent/non-turbulent interface (TNTI) detected in direct numerical simulations is studied for incompressible, temporally developing turbulent boundary layers at momentum thickness Reynolds number Reθ ≈ 2000. The outer edge of the TNTI layer is detected as an isosurface of the vorticity magnitude with the threshold determined with the dependence of the turbulent volume on a threshold level. The spanwise vorticity magnitude and passive scalar are shown to be good markers of turbulent fluids

The enstrophy (ω2/2) and passive scalar (ϕ) transport near the turbulent/non-turbulent (T/NT) interface is investigated using direct numerical simulation of a planar jet with passive scalar transport. To take into account the interface movement, we derive the transport equations for the enstrophy and the scalar in a local coordinate system moving with the T/NT interface. The characteristics of the T/NT interface are analyzed for three interface orientations. The cross-streamwise edge and the lea

Abstract Vortex stretching and compression, which cause enstrophy production by inviscid processes, are investigated near the turbulent/non-turbulent (T/NT) interface in a planar jet by using a direct numerical simulation (DNS). The enstrophy production is investigated by analysing the relationship among a vorticity vector, strain-rate eigenvectors and strain-rate eigenvalues. The statistics are calculated individually for three different interface orientations. The vorticity near the T/NT inter

We report on a study, employing direct numerical simulations, of the turbulent/non-turbulent interface of a wake in a stably stratified fluid. It is found that thresholds for both enstrophy and potential enstrophy are needed to identify the interface. Using conditional averaging relative to the location of the interface, various quantities of interest are examined. The thickness of the interface is found to scale with the Kolmogorov scale. From an examination of the Ozmidov and Kolmogorov length

Lagrangian statistics obtained from direct numerical simulations of turbulent planar jets and mixing layers are reported for the separation distance between the tracer particles at the outer edge of the turbulent/non-turbulent interface layer, and the entrained fluid particles. In the viscous superlayer (VSL) the mean square particle distance exhibits a ballistic evolution, while the Richardson-like scaling for relative dispersion prevails inside the turbulent sublayer (TSL). The results further

The effects of a single vortex near a turbulent/nonturbulent interface (TNTI) layer are studied based on a Burgers' vortex model and direct numerical simulation. The model describes the entrainment as a two-stage process, which is related to strain and vorticity fields, and predicts flow properties near the TNTI.

Turbulent structures in stably stratified shear layers are studied with direct numerical simulation. Flow visualization confirms the existence of hairpin vortices and highly elongated structures with positive and negative velocity fluctuations, whose streamwise lengths divided by the layer thickness are $O(10^{0})$ and $O(10^{1})$ , respectively. The flow at the wavelength related to these structures makes a large contribution to turbulent kinetic energy. These structures become prominent in lat

The geometry of turbulent/non-turbulent interfaces (TNTIs) arising from flows with and without mean shear is investigated using direct numerical simulations of turbulent planar jets (PJET) and shear free turbulence (SFT), respectively, with Taylor Reynolds number of about Reλ≈100. In both flows, the TNTI is preferentially aligned with the tangent to the TNTI displaying convex, where the turbulent fluid nearby tends to have a stronger enstrophy, more frequently than concave shapes. The different

Localized turbulence bounded by non-turbulent flow in a uniformly stratified environment is studied with direct numerical simulations of stably stratified shear layers. Of particular interest is the turbulent/non-turbulent interfacial (TNTI) layer, which is detected by identifying the turbulent region in terms of its potential vorticity. Fluid near the outer edge of the turbulent region gains potential vorticity and becomes turbulent by diffusion arising from both viscous and molecular effects.

Numerical simulations of the turbulent/nonturbulent interface in stably stratified turbulent mixing layers determine the statistical properties near the interface, such as the inner structure of the interface, the characteristic length scales and buoyancy Reynolds number, and the effects of buoyancy on the small-scale turbulence dynamics.

The non-dimensional dissipation rate $C_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}}=\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}L/u^{\prime 3}$ , where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D700}$ , $L$ and $u^{\prime }$ are the viscous energy dissipation rate, integral length scale of turbulence and root-mean-square of the velocity fluctuations, respectively, is computed and analysed within the turbulent/non-turbulent interfacial (TNTI) layer using direct numerical simulations of a planar jet, mixing layer and shear free turbulence. The TNTI layer that s

The relation between shearing motions and the turbulent/non-turbulent interfacial (TNTI) layer is studied with direct numerical simulation of a temporally evolving planar jet. Small-scale shear layers are detected with the triple decomposition of the velocity gradient tensor, which is decomposed into shear, rotation, and elongation tensors. The shear layers are found in the turbulent sublayer more frequently than in the turbulent core region although they hardly appear in the viscous superlayer.