Third-order statistics and the dynamics of strongly anisotropic turbulent flows

Anisotropy is induced by body forces and/or mean large-scale gradients in turbulent flows. For flows without energy production, the dynamics of second-order velocity or second-order vorticity statistics are essentially governed by triple correlations, which are at the origin of the anisotropy that penetrates towards the inertial range, deeply altering the cascade and the eventual dissipation process, with a series of consequences on the evolution of homogeneous turbulence statistics: in the case of rotating turbulence, the anisotropic spectral transfer slaves the multiscale anisotropic energy distribution; nonlinear dynamics are responsible for the linear growth in terms of Ωt of axial integral length-scales; third-order structure functions, derived from velocity triple correlations, exhibit a significant departure from the 4/5 Kolmogorov law. We describe all these implications in detail, starting from the dynamical equations of velocity statistics in Fourier space, which yield third-order correlations at three points (triads) and allow the explicit removal of pressure fluctuations. We first extend the formalism to anisotropic rotating turbulence with ‘production’, in the presence of mean velocity gradients in the rotating frame. Second, we compare the spectral approach at three points to the two-point approach directly performed in physical space, in which we consider the transport of the scalar second-order structure function ?(δq)²?. This calls into play componental third-order correlations ?(δq)²δu?(r) in axisymmetric turbulence. This permits to discuss inhomogeneous anisotropic effects from spatial decay, shear, or production, as in the central region of a rotating round jet. We show that the above-mentioned important statistical quantities can be estimated from experimental planar particle image velocimetry, and that explicit passage relations systematically exist between one- and two-point statistics in physical and spectral space for second-order tensors, but also sometimes for third-order tensors that are involved in the dynamics.