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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Nonlocal amplification of intense vorticity in turbulent flows

Dhawal Buaria1,2,* and Alain Pumir3,2

  • 1Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, New York, New York 11201, USA
  • 2Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen 37077, Germany
  • 3Laboratoire de Physique, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Université de Lyon 1 and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 69007 Lyon, France

  • *dhawal.buaria@nyu.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 3, L042020 – Published 10 November, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L042020

Abstract

The nonlinear and nonlocal coupling of vorticity and strain rate constitutes a major hindrance in understanding the self-amplification of velocity gradients in turbulent fluid flows. Utilizing highly resolved direct numerical simulations of isotropic turbulence in periodic domains of up to 122883 grid points and Taylor-scale Reynolds number Rλ in the range 140–1300, we investigate this nonlocality by decomposing the strain-rate tensor into local and nonlocal contributions obtained through Biot-Savart integration of vorticity in a sphere of radius R. We find that vorticity is predominantly amplified by the nonlocal strain coming beyond a characteristic scale size, which varies as a simple power law of vorticity magnitude. The underlying dynamics preferentially align vorticity with the most extensive eigenvector of nonlocal strain. The remaining local strain aligns vorticity with the intermediate eigenvector and does not contribute significantly to amplification; instead it surprisingly attenuates intense vorticity, leading to breakdown of the observed power law and ultimately also the scale invariance of vorticity amplification, with important implications for prevailing intermittency theories.

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Phys. Rev. Research 3, L042020– Published 10 November, 2021
  • Received 13 May 2021
  • Accepted 19 October 2021
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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