Diagnostic properties of structure tensors in turbulent flows

Abstract

The behavior of turbulence structure tensors based on Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) in a wide range of turbulent channel flows is presented. The structure tensors provide significant physical information on the character of turbulent flows, since they provide an accurate description of the energy containing turbulence structure. LES is ideally suited for their computation since these tensors are quantities representing the larger – energy containing – turbulent scales. The basic aims of the present work are to (i) demonstrate the diagnostic properties of structure tensors in turbulent flows, (ii) report turbulence quantities which would be useful to develop and assess structure-based turbulence models, (iii) demonstrate the capability of LES to accurately compute structure tensors in a variety of flows. Structure tensors have been computed in the presence of complicated physical phenomena like frame rotation or MHD effects. Comparisons with available DNS solutions, confirm the capability of LES to accurately predict such quantities with fundamental significance in turbulent flows. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.