Abstract
Stably stratified turbulence is commonly encountered in geophysical flows and can dramatically alter the evolutionary characteristics of the turbulence by introducing oscillatory behavior in both the scalar and velocity transport fields. Although only velocities in the vertical direction are subject to buoyancy forces, the horizontal components are also affected through nonlinear interaction with the vertical velocity components. If the length scales of the velocity field are small relative to those at which the buoyancy forces become strong, the turbulence is classified as “active” by Gibson [1986]. In buoyancy-dominated turbulence, some or all motions have inertial forces less than or equal to buoyant forces. There is also reduced turbulent scalar transport and dissipation compared with active turbulence of similar total energy. These ideas have been used by Gibson [1986] in his physical modeling of this problem to derive criteria for discriminating stably stratified turbulent flow which is buoyancy-dominated from inertially-dominated (active) turbulence. His results have received support from the experimental studies of Stillinger et al. [1983] and Itsweire et al. [1986].
Keywords
- Prandtl Number
- Direct Numerical Simulation
- Horizontal Velocity Component
- Direct Numerical Simulation Result
- Active Turbulence
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Sanderson, R.C., Leonard, A.D., Herring, J.R., Hill, J.C. (1991). Fossil and Active Turbulence. In: Metais, O., Lesieur, M. (eds) Turbulence and Coherent Structures. Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7904-9_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7904-9_26
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