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Bianca Viggiano

Publications and source records attributed to Bianca Viggiano.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Lagrangian modeling of a non-homogeneous turbulent shear flow: Molding homogeneous and isotropic trajectories into a jet

Turbulence is prevalent in nature and industry, from large-scale wave dynamics to small-scale combustion nozzle sprays. In addition to the multi-scale nonlinear complexity and both randomness and coherent structures in its dynamics, practical turbulence is often non-homogeneous and anisotropic, leading to great modeling challenges. In this letter, an efficient model is proposed to predict turbulent jet statistics with high accuracy. The model leverages detailed knowledge of readily available velocity signals from idealized homogeneous turbulence and transforms them into Lagrangian trajectories of a turbulent jet. The resulting spatio-temporal statistics are compared against experimental jet data showing remarkable agreement at all scales. In particular the intermittency phenomenon is accurately mapped by the model to this inhomogeneous situation, as observed by higher-order moments and velocity increment probability density functions. Crucial to the advancement of turbulence modeling, the transformation is simple to implement, with possible extensions to other inhomogeneous flows such as wind turbine wakes and canopy flows, to name a few.

physics.flu-dyn

Entrainment, diffusion and effective compressibility in a self-similar turbulent jet

An experimental Lagrangian study based on particle tracking velocimetry has been completed in an incompressible turbulent round water jet freely spreading into water. The jet is seeded with tracers only through the nozzle: inhomogeneous seeding called nozzle seeding. The Lagrangian flow tagged by these tracers therefore does not contain any contribution from particles entrained into the jet from the quiescent surrounding fluid. The mean velocity field of the nozzle seeded flow, $\langle \boldsymbol{U_φ} \rangle$, is found to be essentially indistinguishable from the global mean velocity field of the jet, $\langle \boldsymbol{U} \rangle$, for the axial velocity while significant deviations are found for the radial velocity. This results in an effective compressibility of the nozzle seeded flow for which $\boldsymbol{\nabla \cdot} \langle \boldsymbol{U_φ} \rangle \neq 0$ even though the global background flow is fully incompressible. By using mass conservation and self-similarity, we quantitatively explain the modified radial velocity profile and analytically express the missing contribution associated to entrained fluid particles. By considering a classical advection-diffusion description, we explicitly connect turbulent diffusion of mass (through the turbulent diffusivity $K_T$) and momentum (through the turbulent viscosity $ν_T$) to entrainment. This results in new practical relations to experimentally determine the non-uniform spatial profiles of $K_T$ and $ν_T$ (and hence of the turbulent Prandtl number $σ_T = ν_T/K_T$) from simple measurements of the mean tracer concentration and axial velocity profiles. Overall, the proposed approach based on nozzle seeded flow gives new experimental and theoretical elements for a better comprehension of turbulent diffusion and entrainment in turbulent jets.

physics.flu-dyn

Lagrangian diffusion properties of a free shear turbulent jet

A Lagrangian experimental study of an axisymmetric turbulent water jet is performed to investigate the highly anisotropic and inhomogeneous flow field. The measurements were conducted within a Lagrangian exploration module, an icosahedron apparatus, to facilitate optical access of three cameras. The stereoscopic particle tracking velocimetry results in three component tracks of position, velocity and acceleration of the tracer particles within the vertically-oriented jet with a Taylor-based Reynolds number $\mathcal R_λ\simeq 230$. Analysis is performed at seven locations from 15 diameters up to 45 diameters downstream. Eulerian analysis is first carried out to obtain critical parameters of the jet and relevant scales, namely the Kolmogorov and large turnover (integral) scales as well as the energy dissipation rate. Lagrangian statistical analysis is then performed on velocity components stationarised following methods inspired by Batchelor (\textit{J. Fluid Mech.}, vol. 3, 1957, pp. 67-80) which aim to extend stationary Lagrangian theory of turbulent diffusion by Taylor to the case of self-similar flows. The evolution of typical Lagrangian scaling parameters as a function of the developing jet is explored and results show validation of the proposed stationarisation. The universal scaling constant $C_0$ (for the Lagrangian second-order structure function), as well as Eulerian and Lagrangian integral time scales are discussed in this context. $C_0$ is found to converge to a constant value (of the order of $C_0 = 3$) within 30 diameters downstream of the nozzle. Finally, the existence of finite particle size effects are investigated through consideration of acceleration dependent quantities.

physics.flu-dyn

Modelling Lagrangian velocity and acceleration in turbulent flows as infinitely differentiable stochastic processes

We develop a stochastic model for Lagrangian velocity as it is observed in experimental and numerical fully developed turbulent flows. We define it as the unique statistically stationary solution of a causal dynamics, given by a stochastic differential equation. In comparison to previously proposed stochastic models, the obtained process is infinitely differentiable at a given finite Reynolds number, and its second-order statistical properties converge to those of an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process in the infinite Reynolds number limit. In this limit, it exhibits furthermore intermittent scaling properties, as they can be quantified using higher-order statistics. To achieve this, we begin with generalizing the two-layered embedded stochastic process of Sawford (1991) by considering an infinite number of layers. We then study, both theoretically and numerically, the convergence towards a smooth (i.e. infinitely differentiable) Gaussian process. To include intermittent corrections, we follow similar considerations as for the multifractal random walk of Bacry et al. (2001). We derive in an exact manner the statistical properties of this process, and compare them to those estimated from Lagrangian trajectories extracted from numerically simulated turbulent flows. Key predictions of the multifractal formalism regarding acceleration correlation function and high-order structure functions are also derived. Through these predictions, we understand phenomenologically peculiar behaviours of the fluctuations in the dissipative range, that are not reproduced by our stochastic process. The proposed theoretical method regarding the modelling of infinitely differentiability opens the route to the full stochastic modelling of velocity, including the peculiar action of viscosity on the very fine scales.

physics.flu-dyn