arXiv subjects

Beverley McKeon

Publications and source records attributed to Beverley McKeon.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Predicting Turbulence Structure In Street-Canyon Flows using Deep Generative Modeling

The high dimensionality and complex dynamics of turbulent flows in urban street canyons present significant challenges for wind and environmental engineering, particularly in addressing air quality, pollutant dispersion, and extreme wind events. This study introduces a deep learning framework to predict spatio-temporal flow behavior in street canyons with varying geometric configurations and upstream roughness conditions. A convolutional encoder-decoder transformer model, trained on particle image velocimetry (PIV) data from wind tunnel experiments, is employed with autoregressive training to predict flow characteristics. The training dataset contains diverse flow regimes, with a focus on the wall-parallel plane near the canyon roof, a critical region for pollutant exchange between the outer flow and the canyon interior. The model accurately reproduces key flow features, including mean turbulent statistics, two-point correlations, quadrant analysis, and dominant flow structures, while demonstrating strong agreement with experimental data in capturing the temporal evolution of flow dynamics. These findings demonstrate the potential of deep learning models to enhance predictive capabilities for urban canyon flows, offering a pathway toward improved urban design, sustainable environmental management, and more effective pollutant dispersion modeling.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2024

Coupled dynamics of wall pressure and transpiration, with implications for the modeling of tailored surfaces and turbulent drag reduction

Wall-based active and passive flow control for drag reduction in low Reynolds number (Re) turbulent flows can lead to three typical phenomena: i) attenuation or ii) amplification of the near-wall cycle, and iii) generation of spanwise rollers. The present study conducts direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a low Re turbulent channel flow and demonstrates that each flow response can be generated with a wall transpiration at two sets of spatial scales, termed "streak" and "roller" scales. The effect of the transpiration is controlled by its relative phase to the background flow, which can be parametrized by the wall pressure. Streak scales i) attenuate the near-wall cycle if transpiration and wall-pressure are approximately in-phase or ii) amplify it otherwise, and iii) roller scales energize spanwise rollers when transpiration and wall pressure are out-of-phase. The dynamics of the wall pressure and transpiration are coupled and robust relative phase relations, which are required to trigger the flow responses, can result if the source term of the linear fast or nonlinear slow pressure correlates with the wall transpiration over a scale-dependent height or if the temporal frequency content of the wall transpiration is approximately sparse. The importance of each condition depends on the relative magnitude of the pressure components, which is significantly altered by the transpiration. The analogy in flow response suggests that transpiration with the two scale families and their phase relations to the wall pressure represent fundamental building blocks for flows over tailored surfaces including riblets, porous, and permeable walls.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2024

Basset-Boussinesq history force and inertia are relevant for unsteady particle settling dynamics

Our experiments on a sphere falling under gravity in Stokes flow show significant history effects. We observe an algebraic, not exponential, relaxation rate to the terminal velocity, validating the solution to the Basset-Boussinesq-Oseen equation. Unlike in steady Stokes theory, our experiments and theory reveal a vortex ring forming around the sphere and drifting away. As the Reynolds number nears unity, the vortex ring lags behind the sphere, departing from Stokesian theory, though the sphere's algebraic response persists. These findings are critical for interactions in the Stokes limit.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2021

A Variational Formulation of Resolvent Analysis

The conceptual picture underlying resolvent analysis(RA) is that the nonlinear term in the Navier-Stokes(NS) equations provides an intrinsic forcing to the linear dynamics, a description inspired by control theory. The inverse of the linear operator, defined as the resolvent, is interpreted as a transfer function between the forcing and the velocity response. This inversion obscures the physical interpretation of the governing equations and is prohibitive to analytical manipulation, and for large systems leads to significant computational cost and memory requirements. In this work we suggest an alternative, inverse free, definition of the resolvent basis based on an extension of the Courant-Fischer-Weyl min-max principle in which resolvent modes are defined as stationary points of a constrained variational problem. This leads to a straightforward approach to approximate the resolvent (response) modes of complex flows as expansions in any basis. The proposed method avoids matrix inversions and requires only the spectral decomposition of a matrix of significantly reduced size as compared to the original system. To illustrate this method and the advantages of the variational formulation we present three examples. First, we consider streamwise constant fluctuations in turbulent channel flow where an asymptotic analysis allows us to derive closed form expressions for the optimal resolvent modes. Second, to illustrate the cost saving potential, and investigate the limits, of the proposed method we apply our method to both a 2-dimensional, 3-component equilibrium solution in Couette flow and, finally, to a streamwise developing turbulent boundary layer. For these larger systems we achieve a model reduction of up to two orders of magnitude. Such savings have the potential to open RA to the investigation of larger domains and more complex flow configurations.

physics.flu-dyn↗