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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Jiménez, Javier
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.09259
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author Jiménez, Javier
author_facet Jiménez, Javier
contents The behavior of velocity fluctuations near a wall has long fascinated the turbulence community, because the prevalent theoretical framework of an attached-eddy hierarchy appears to predict infinite intensities as the Reynolds number tends to infinity. Although an unbounded infinite limit is not a problem in itself, it raises the possibility of unfamiliar phenomena when the Reynolds number is large, and has motivated attempts to avoid it. We review the subject and point to possible pitfalls stemming from uncritical extrapolation from low Reynolds numbers, or from an over-simplification of the multiscale nature of turbulence. It is shown that large attached eddies dominate the high-Reynolds-number regime of the near-wall layer, and that they behave differently from smaller-scale ones. In that limit, the near-wall layer is controlled by the outer flow, the large-scale fluctuations reduce to a local modulation of the near-wall flow by a variable friction velocity, and the kinetic-energy peak is substituted by a deeper structure with a secondary outer maximum. The friction velocity is then not necessarily the best velocity scale. While the near-wall energy peak probably becomes unbounded in wall units, it almost surely tends to zero when expressed in terms of the outer driving velocity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_09259
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The eddies are attached, but it is all right
Jiménez, Javier
Fluid Dynamics
The behavior of velocity fluctuations near a wall has long fascinated the turbulence community, because the prevalent theoretical framework of an attached-eddy hierarchy appears to predict infinite intensities as the Reynolds number tends to infinity. Although an unbounded infinite limit is not a problem in itself, it raises the possibility of unfamiliar phenomena when the Reynolds number is large, and has motivated attempts to avoid it. We review the subject and point to possible pitfalls stemming from uncritical extrapolation from low Reynolds numbers, or from an over-simplification of the multiscale nature of turbulence. It is shown that large attached eddies dominate the high-Reynolds-number regime of the near-wall layer, and that they behave differently from smaller-scale ones. In that limit, the near-wall layer is controlled by the outer flow, the large-scale fluctuations reduce to a local modulation of the near-wall flow by a variable friction velocity, and the kinetic-energy peak is substituted by a deeper structure with a secondary outer maximum. The friction velocity is then not necessarily the best velocity scale. While the near-wall energy peak probably becomes unbounded in wall units, it almost surely tends to zero when expressed in terms of the outer driving velocity.
title The eddies are attached, but it is all right
topic Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.09259