Spatial evolution of the turbulent/turbulent interface geometry in a cylinder wake

Abstract

This study aims to examine the spatial evolution of the geometrical features of the turbulent/turbulent interface (TTI) in a cylinder wake. The wake is exposed to various turbulent backgrounds in which the turbulence intensity and the integral length scale are independently varied and comparisons to a turbulent/non-turbulent interface (TNTI) are drawn. The turbulent wake was marked with a high-Schmidt-number ($Sc$) scalar and a planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) experiment was carried out to capture the interface between the wake and the ambient flow from $x/d$ = 5 to 40 where $x$ is the streamwise coordinate from the centre of the cylinder and $d$ is the cylinder's diameter. It is found that the TTI generally spreads faster toward the ambient flow than the TNTI. A transition region of the interfaces' spreading is found at $x/d \approx 15$, after which the interfaces propagate at a slower rate than previously (upstream) and the mean interface positions of both TNTI and TTI scale with the local wake half-width. The location of both the TNTI and TTI have non-Gaussian probability density functions (PDFs) in the near wake because of the influence of the large-scale coherent motions present within the flow. Further downstream, after the large-scale coherent motions have dissipated, the TNTI position PDF does become Gaussian. For the first time we explore the spatial variation of the ``roughness'' of the TTI, quantified via the fractal dimension, from near field to far field. The length scale in the background flow has a profound effect on the TTI fractal dimension in the near wake, whilst the turbulence intensity only becomes important for the fractal dimension farther downstream.