Rigorous upper bounds for transport due to passive advection by inhomogeneous turbulence

A variational procedure, due originally to Howard and explored by Busse and others for self-consistent turbulence problems, is employed to determine rigorous upper bounds for the advection of a passive scalar through an inhomogeneous turbulent slab with arbitrary generalized Reynolds number R and Kubo number K. In the basic version of the method, the steady-state energy balance is used as a constraint; the resulting bound, though rigorous, is independent of K. A pedagogical reference model (one dimension, K = ∞) is described in detail; the bound compares favorably with the exact solution. The direct-interaction approximation is also worked out for this model; it is somewhat more accurate than the bound, but requires considerably more labor to solve. For the basic bound, a general formalism is presented for several dimensions, finite correlation length, and reasonably general boundary conditions. Part of the general method, in which a Green's function technique is employed, applies to self-consistent as well as to passive problems and thereby generalizes previous results in the fluid literature. The formalism is extended for the first time to include time-dependent constraints, and a bound is deduced which explicitly depends on K and has the correct physical scalings in all regimes of R and K. Two applications from the theory of turbulent plasmas are described: flux in velocity space, and test particle transport in stochastic magnetic fields. For the velocity space problem, the simplest bound reproduces Dupree's original scaling for the strong turbulence diffusion coefficient. For the case of stochastic magnetic fields, the scaling of the bounds is described for the magnetic diffusion coefficient as well as for the particle diffusion coefficient in the so-called collisionless, fluid, and double-streaming regimes.     

Improved rigorous upper bounds for transport due to passive advection described by simple models of bounded systems

The work of J. A. Krommes and R. A. Smith on rigorous upper bounds for the turbulent transport of a passively advected scalar is extended in two directions: (1) For their reference model, improved upper bounds are obtained by utilizing more sophisticated two-time constraints which include the effects of cross-correlations up to fourth order. Numerical solutions of the model stochastic differential equation are also obtained; they show that the new bounds compare quite favorably with the exact results, even at large Reynolds and Kubo numbers. (2) The theory is extended to take account of afinite spatial autocorrelation lengthL _c. As a reasonably generic example, the problem of particle transport due to statistically specified stochastic magnetic fields in a collisionless turbulent plasma is revisited. A bound is obtained which reduces for smallL _c to the quasilinear limit and for largeL _c to the strong turbulence limit, and which provides a reasonable and rigorous interpolation for intermediate values ofL _c.     

Direct measurement of effective magnetic diffusivity in turbulent flow of liquid sodium

The first direct measurements of effective magnetic diffusivity in turbulent flow of electroconductive fluids (the so-called β effect) under the magnetic Reynolds number Rm?1 are reported. The measurements are performed in a nonstationary turbulent flow of liquid sodium, generated in a closed toroidal channel. The peak level of the Reynolds number reached Re≈3×10(6), which corresponds to the magnetic Reynolds number Rm≈30. The magnetic diffusivity of the liquid metal was determined by measuring the phase shift between the induced and the applied magnetic fields. The maximal deviation of magnetic diffusivity from its laminar value reaches about 50%.     

Performance bounds for passive sensor arrays operating in a turbulent medium: plane-wave analysis

The performance bounds of a passive acoustic array operating in a turbulent medium with fluctuations described by a von Kármán spectrum are investigated. This treatment considers a single, monochromatic, plane-wave source at near-normal incidence. A line-of-sight propagation path is assumed. The primary interests are in calculating the Cramer-Rao lower bounds of the azimuthal and elevational angles of arrival and in observing how these bounds change with the introduction of additional unknowns, such as the propagation distance, turbulence parameters, and signal-to-noise ratio. In both two and three dimensions, it is found that for large values of the index-of-refraction variance, the Cramer-Rao lower bounds of the angles of arrival increase significantly at large values of the normalized propagation distance. For small values of the index-of-refraction variance and normalized propagation distance, the signal-to-noise ratio is found to be the limiting factor. In the two-dimensional treatment, it is found that the estimate of the angle of arrival will decouple from the estimates of the other parameters with the appropriate choice of array geometry. In three dimensions, again with an appropriate choice of array geometry, the estimates of the azimuth and elevation will decouple from the estimates of the other parameters, but due to the constraints of the model, will remain coupled to one another.     

An exact representation of the space-time characteristic functional of turbulent Navier-Stokes flows with prescribed random initial states and driving forces

By adopting a formal operator viewpoint, the space-time characteristic functional associated with Navier-Stokes turbulence is expressed in terms of a linear operator acting on the space of functionals. Obtained by a simple similarity transformation of the local translation operator generated by the nonlinear terms in the Navier-Stokes equation, this operator is unitary with respect to the formal scalar product of functionals. The equivalence of this operator representation to the functional integral representation of Rosen is shown and, for Gaussian initial velocity and external force fields, some consequences of this representation are presented.     

Averaged dynamics of time-periodic advection diffusion equations in the limit of small diffusivity

We study the effect of advection and small diffusion on passive tracers. The advecting velocity field is assumed to have mean zero and to possess time-periodic stream lines. Using a canonical transform to action-angle variables followed by a Lie transform, we derive an averaged equation describing the effective motion of the tracers. An estimate for the time validity of the first-order approximation is established. For particular cases of a regularized vortical flow we present explicit formulas for the coefficients of the averaged equation both at first and at second order. Numerical simulations indicate that the validity of the above first-order estimate extends to the second order.     

Chaotic advection,diffusion, and reactions in open flows

We review and generalize recent results on advection of particles in open time-periodic hydrodynamical flows. First, the problem of passive advection is considered, and its fractal and chaotic nature is pointed out. Next, we study the effect of weak molecular diffusion or randomness of the flow. Finally, we investigate the influence of passive advection on chemical or biological activity superimposed on open flows. The nondiffusive approach is shown to carry some features of a weak diffusion, due to the finiteness of the reaction range or reaction velocity. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics.     

Variational bounds on shear-driven turbulence and turbulent Boussinesq convection

Based on earlier studies by Hopf (1941), Doering and Constantin (1992, 1994, 1995) have recently formulated a new “background” technique for obtaining upper bounds on turbulent fluid flow quantities. This method produces upper bounds on the limit supremum of long time averages, making no statistical assumptions about the flow in contrast to the well-known Howard-Busse approach. The full optimisation problems posed by this method for the momentum transport in turbulent Couette flow and the heat transport (with zero background flow) in turbulent Boussinesq convection are solved here for the first time at asymptotically large Reynolds number and Rayleigh number within Busse's multiple boundary layer approximation to extract the best (lowest) possible upper bounds available. Intriguingly, the original bounds isolated by Busse (1969, 1970) within the confines of statistical stationarity are recovered exactly using this new formalism. The optimal background velocity profile for turbulent Couette flow is found to be shearless in the interior thus differing from Busse's “ ” mean shear result. In the convective case, an interesting degeneracy in the formulation of the background variational problem leads to an indeterminacy in the optimal background temperature profile. Only for one special choice is the isothermal core feature of Busse's mean profile recovered.     

Dynamical slowdown of polymers in laminar and random flows

The influence of an external flow on the relaxation dynamics of a single polymer is investigated theoretically and numerically. We show that a pronounced dynamical slowdown occurs in the vicinity of the coil-stretch transition, especially when the dependence on polymer conformation of the drag is accounted for. For the elongational flow, relaxation times are exceedingly larger than the Zimm relaxation time, resulting in the observation of conformation hysteresis. For random smooth flows, hysteresis is not present. Yet, relaxation dynamics is significantly slowed down because of the large variety of accessible polymer configurations. The implications of these results for the modeling of dilute polymer solutions in turbulent flows are addressed.     

Interchangeability and bounds on the effective conductivity of the square lattice

The effective conductivity ^* of an infinitely interchangeable two-component random medium is considered. This class of media includes cell materials in the continuum and the bond lattice on ^d , where the cells or bonds are randomly assigned the conductivities ₁ and ₂ ( ₁, ₂ne0) with probabilitiesp ₁ andp ₂=1–p ₁. A rigorous basis for the very old and widely used low volume fraction expansion of ^* is established, by proving that ^* is an analytic function ofp ₂ in a suitable domain containing [0, 1]. In the case of the bond lattice ind=2, rigorous fourth-order upper and lower bounds on ^* valid for allp ₂, ₁, and ₂ are derived. The four perturbation coefficients entering into the bounds are obtained from the first-order volume fraction coefficient using the method of infinite interchangeability.     

Structure analysis of turbulent mixing patterns in inert and reactive turbulent liquid flows

The paper contains an extended summary of an invited plenary talk given at the Workshop on Active Chaos at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on 29-31 May 2001 by one of us (F.S.R.). (c) 2002 American Institute of Physics.     

Drag reduction by microbubbles in turbulent flows: the limit of minute bubbles

Drag reduction by microbubbles is a promising engineering method for improving ship performance. A fundamental theory of the phenomenon is lacking, however, making actual design quite haphazard. We offer here a theory of drag reduction by microbubbles in the limit of very small bubbles, when the effect of the bubbles is mainly to normalize the density and the viscosity of the carrier fluid. The theory culminates with a prediction of the degree of drag reduction given the concentration profile of the bubbles. Comparisons with experiments are discussed and the road ahead is sketched.