Large scale correlations for energy injection mechanisms in swirling turbulent flows

We report an experimental study of large scale correlations in the power injected in turbulent swirling flows generated in the gap between two coaxial rotating disks. We measure the pressure fluctuations on the blades of one disk, as well as the pressure drop between the leading and the trailing edges of the rotating blades, i.e. the local drag force. Measurements at different positions on one blade and on two successive blades display a correlation length much larger than the ones usually expected in turbulent flows. The time lag for which the correlation between two points is maximum, strongly depends on the global flow configuration. These results help us to understand the statistical properties of the injected power fluctuations in turbulent swirling flows. Received 2 September 1999     

The structure of the fractional powers of the noncommutative Fourier law

In the recent years, there has been a lot of interest in fractional diffusion and fractional evolution problems. The spectral theory on the S‐spectrum turned out to be an important tool to define new fractional diffusion operators stating from the Fourier law for nonhomogeneous materials. Precisely, let e_?, e_?=1,2,3 be orthogonal unit vectors in and let be a bounded open set with smooth boundary ?Ω. Denoting by a point in Ω, the heat equation is obtained replacing the Fourier law given by into the conservation of energy law. In this paper, we investigate the structure of the fractional powers of the vector operator T, with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. Recently, we have found sufficient conditions on the coefficients a, b, such that the fractional powers of T exist in the sense of the S‐spectrum approach. In this paper, we show that under a different set of conditions on the coefficients a, b, c, the fractional powers of T have a different structure.     

The complex Monge–Ampère equation on weakly pseudoconvex domains

We show here a “weak” Hölder regularity up to the boundary of the solution to the Dirichlet problem for the complex Monge–Ampère equation with data in the $L^p$ space and Ω satisfying an f-property. The f-property is a potential-theoretical condition that holds for all pseudoconvex domains of finite type and many examples of infinite-type ones.     

Magnetic permeability of a diphasic flow, made of liquid gallium and iron beads

Magnetohydrodynamics studies in laboratory experiments have long been restricted to low magnetic Reynolds number flows, mainly as a result of the very high magnetic diffusivity λ = 1/μσ of common conducting fluids (μ is the fluid's magnetic permeability and σ its electrical conductivity). The best conductivities are found in liquid metals which have a unit magnetic permeability, relative to vacuum. We show experimentally that a suspension of solid particles with a high magnetic permeability in a liquid metal yields an effective medium that has a high electrical conductivity and an enhanced magnetic permeability. The dispersion of the beads results from the turbulent fluid motion. The range of accessible magnetic Reynolds number can be increased by a factor of as much as 4 in our experimental setup. Received 6 March 2000 and Received in final form 13 July 2000     

Power fluctuations in a closed turbulent shear flow

We study experimentally the power consumption P of a confined turbulent flow at constant Reynolds number Re. We analyze in details its temporal dynamics and statistical properties, in a setup that covers two decades in Reynolds numbers. We show that nontrivial power fluctuations occur over a wide range of amplitudes and that they involve coherent fluid motions over the entire system size. As a result, the power fluctuations do not result from averaging of independent subsystems and its probability density function Pi(P) is strongly non-Gaussian. The shape of Pi(P) is Reynolds number independant and we show that the relative intensity of fluctuations decreases very slowly as Re increases. These results are discussed in terms of an analogy with critical phenomena.     

Chaotic dynamos generated by a turbulent flow of liquid sodium

We report the observation of several dynamical regimes of the magnetic field generated by a turbulent flow of liquid sodium (VKS experiment). Stationary dynamos, transitions to relaxation cycles or to intermittent bursts, and random field reversals occur in a fairly small range of parameters. Large scale dynamics of the magnetic field result from the interactions of a few modes. The low dimensional nature of these dynamics is not smeared out by the very strong turbulent fluctuations of the flow.     

Effective magnetic permeability of a turbulent fluid with macroferroparticles

A fully developed turbulent flow is capable to mix and homogenize a suspension of heavy macroscopic particles even at a high concentration of particles. If the particles are ferromagnetic, a kind of “turbulent ferrofluid" can be obtained. In the present work, we present a direct measurements of the effective magnetic permeability in a turbulent fluid with suspended ferromagnetic particles of typical size 0.01-0.1 mm and volume fraction c up to 25%. We show that the effective permeability can be fitted by the linear law = 1 + 5.3c for c? 10%. For higher volume fractions the permeability exceeds this linear relation. Received 11 January 2002     

Lagrangian Velocity Fluctuations in Fully Developed Turbulence: Scaling, Intermittency, and Dynamics

New aspects of turbulence are uncovered if one considers the flow motion from the perspective of a fluid particle (known as the Lagrangian approach) rather than in terms of a velocity field (the Eulerian viewpoint). Using a new experimental technique, based on the scattering of ultrasound, we have obtained a direct measurement of particle velocities, resolved at all scales, in a fully turbulent flow. We find that the Lagrangian velocity autocorrelation function and the Lagrangian time spectrum are in agreement with the Kolmogorov K41 phenomenology. Intermittency corrections are observed and we give a measurement of the Lagrangian structure function exponents. They are more intermittent than the corresponding Eulerian exponents. We also propose a novel analysis of intermittency in turbulence: our measurement enables us to study it from a dynamical point of view. We thus analyze the Lagrangian velocity fluctuations in the framework of random walks. We find experimentally that the elementary steps in the walk have random uncorrelated directions but a magnitude that displays extremely long-range correlations in time. Theoretically, we study a Langevin equation that incorporates these features and we show that the resulting dynamics accounts for the observed one-point and two-point statistical properties of the Lagrangian velocity fluctuations. Our approach connects the intermittent statistical nature of turbulence to the dynamics of the flow.     

Universal fluctuations in correlated systems

The probability density function (PDF) of a global measure in a large class of highly correlated systems has been suggested to be of the same functional form. Here, we identify the analytical form of the PDF of one such measure, the order parameter in the low temperature phase of the 2D XY model. We demonstrate that this function describes the fluctuations of global quantities in other correlated equilibrium and nonequilibrium systems. These include a coupled rotor model, Ising and percolation models, models of forest fires, sandpiles, avalanches, and granular media in a self-organized critical state. We discuss the relationship with both Gaussian and extremal statistics.