Anomalous dispersion of Lagrangian particles in local regions of turbulent flows revealed by convex hull analysis

Abstract

Local regions of anomalous particle dispersion, and intermittent events that occur in turbulent flows can greatly influence the global statistical description of the flow. These local behaviors can be identified and analyzed by comparing the growth of neighboring convex hulls of Lagrangian tracer particles. Although in our simulations of homogeneous turbulence the convex hulls generally grow in size, after the Lagrangian particles that define the convex hulls begin to disperse, our analysis reveals short periods when the convex hulls of the Lagrangian particles shrink, evidence that particles are not dispersing simply. Shrinkage can be associated with anisotropic flows, since it occurs most frequently in the presence of a mean magnetic field or thermal convection. We compare dispersion between a wide range of statistically homogeneous and stationary turbulent flows ranging from homogeneous isotropic Navier-Stokes turbulence over different configurations of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and Boussinesq convection.