Introduction to Turbulence in Fluid Mechanics

Abstract

Everyday life gives us an intuitive knowledge of turbulence in fluids: the smoke of a cigarette or over a fire exhibits a disordered behaviour characteristic of the motion of the air which transports it. The wind is subject to abrupt changes in direction and velocity, which may have dramatic consequences for the seafarer or the hang-glider. During air travel, one often hears the word turbulence generally associated with the fastening of seat-belts. Turbulence is also mentioned to describe the flow of a stream, and in a river it has important consequences concerning the sediment transport and the motion of the bed. The rapid flow of any fluid passing an obstacle or an airfoil creates turbulence in the boundary layers and develops a turbulent wake which will generally increase the drag exerted by the flow on the obstacle (and measured by the famous C_x coefficient): so turbulence has to be avoided in order to obtain better aerodynamic performance for cars or planes. The majority of atmospheric or oceanic currents cannot be predicted accurately and fall into the category of turbulent flows, even in the large planetary scales. Small-scale turbulence in the atmosphere can be an obstacle towards the accuracy of astronomic observations, and observatory locations have to be chosen in consequence. The atmospheres of planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, the solar atmosphere or the Earth’s outer core are turbulent.