1

Highly spatially and temporally varying state of fluid motion that

occurs under most practical conditions
Characterized by high outer-scale Reynolds Number



Re

IS NOT a dimensionless fluid velocity

Re

IS a measure of the importance of fluid inertia versus viscous effects

High Re => Non-linear inertial terms in NS equations dominate over linear
viscous diffusion terms
What is turbulence?
( ) ( ) ( )
( )
( ) ( )
( ) x
x x u
x
x x u x

v
o

o
o o
o
= Re
u

Physics of fluid motion sets up a large range of length and time scales
Outer length scale set by geometry ()
Inner length scale set by inertial-diffusive balance



Ratio of outer and inner scales



Consider a simple boundary layer
u

= u

= 300 m/s
= 10 cm
= 10
-5
m
2
/s
Re

= 3 x 10
6
Why are turbulent flows so complex?
( ) ( )
( )
) 1 ( Re O = =
x
x x u

v

v v
v
4 / 3 1
Re ) 10 (
o
v

o

O =

u

2
Consider a simple boundary layer
u

= u

= 300 m/s
= 10 cm
= 10
-5
m
2
/s
Re

= 3 x 10
6



Want to solve for the boundary layer over a wing

V = 1 x 50 x 500
20 integral time scales
8.6 x 10
15
grid points
1.4 x 10
5
time steps
Single Cray C-90 (400 MFlops) => 20ms/(time step*grid point)
760 million years
Fastest 500 supercomputers in the world (32.4 petaFlops, June 2010) => 9.5 years
Why are turbulent flows so complex?
) 7000 ( O =
v

o

u

) 7000 ( O =
v
o
t
T
Unlike problems in mechanics, heat conduction, etc., we will not be able to
simply solve the governing equations for fluid flow
Instead we will need to develop physically based, accurate, reliable, robust,
and computationally viable models for turbulent flow.
What does this mean?
3
Common misconception about turbulence scales and the turbulence
cascade
Turbulence does not consist of large eddies beside small eddies



Turbulence cascade is not caused by large eddies stretching
neighboring small eddies
What does turbulence look like?
Direct Numerical Simulations of turbulence from the Earth Simulator
Periodic box of turbulence
16.4 TFlop (fastest supercomputer from 2002-2004)
Fourier spectral method (no conservation of mass)
What does turbulence look like?
4
What does turbulence look like?
What does turbulence look like?
5
The Navier-Stokes Equations
The NS equations form the basis for understanding turbulent flow
Can derive many other important equations describing physical processes
Kinetic energy transport equation
Importance and physics of dissipation
Conserved scalar transport equation
Important in mixing/chemical processes
Reynolds or Favre averaging the NS equations provides basic mechanism for
turbulence modeling

Why are turbulent flows so complex?
The NS equations with ICs and BCs provide a
deterministic description of fluid motion
In principal, can integrate the
equations forward in time to
determine velocity field
However, this does not work!! Why?
Mathematically, if the BCs are perfectly
steady, there is a steady solution for
any value of Re

Physically, BCs are never perfectly
steady
Only observe steady solutions for
Re<Re
crit



Must study stability of the solutions
There is a mathematical framework
I will just emphasize important
physical points


u p u u
t
u

2
Re
1
V + V =
|
.
|

\
|
V +
c
c
o
0 = V u

Initial Conditions
Boundary Conditions
6
u p u u
t
u

2
Re
1
V + V =
|
.
|

\
|
V +
c
c
o
Re

<< 1 (creeping flow)

Diffusion effects >> inertial effects



Linear equation
Diffusion smooths out disturbances
Pressure gradient term does not
affect turbulence


Simple diffusion equation
Very smooth, stable solutions
Why are turbulent flows so complex?
0 = V u

Re

is the only dimensionless parameter

effects diffusion (linear)
effects inertial linear) - (non
Re =
o
Inertia (non-linear)


Diffusion (linear)


u p
t
u

2
Re
1
V + V ~
c
c
o
e
e
o

2
Re
1
V =
c
c
t
0 = V u

Initial Conditions
Boundary Conditions
Re

= O(1) (laminar flow)

Diffusion effects inertial effects



Stable solutions up to some critical
Re

Vorticity field becomes more
concentrated due to inertia
Re

Re
, critical
> O(1) (Transitional
flow)
Non-linear inertial terms makes
velocity field highly sensitive to
small perturbations
Vorticity field becomes more
concentrated
Why are turbulent flows so complex?
0 = V u

u p u u
t
u

2
Re
1
V + V = V +
c
c
o
u p u u
t
u

2
Re
1
V + V =
|
.
|

\
|
V +
c
c
o
Inertia (non-linear)


Diffusion (linear)


0 = V u

Initial Conditions
Boundary Conditions
Re

is the only dimensionless parameter

effects diffusion (linear)
effects inertial linear) - (non
Re =
o
7
Re

>> Re
,critical
(turbulent flow)
Diffusion effects << inertial effects




Flow is massively non-linear
Extreme sensitivity to infinitesimal
perturbations
No two realizations of the same
problem are the same in detail
Vorticity is very highly concetrated
Inertial effects reduce the length-scale
of the concentrated vortical structures
through vortex-line stretching,

Viscosity ONLY sets the length of

Why are turbulent flows so complex?
0 = V u

p u u
t
u
V = V +
c
c

u p u u
t
u

2
Re
1
V + V =
|
.
|

\
|
V +
c
c
o
Inertia (non-linear)


Diffusion (linear)


0 = V u

Initial Conditions
Boundary Conditions
Re

is the only dimensionless parameter

effects diffusion (linear)
effects inertial linear) - (non
Re =
o
Sensitivity to disturbances causes large problems
Impossible to know the precise BCs of any real system
Impossible to keep them perfectly steady
The details of any turbulent flow are fundamentally non-deterministic
For the most part, we do not care about the details
Turbulent flows have certain universal properties
Allow for a statistical description
Why are turbulent flows so complex?
8
Unsteadiness at large Re due to real boundary conditions
At low Re, steady solutions are stable
At high Re, steady solutions are manifestly unstable
Infinitesimal perturbations from the steady solution cause rapidly growing
unsteadiness
Flow takes on an exceedingly high degree of spatial and temporal
unsteadiness <- This is turbulence
For any flow problem, there is a critical Re at which the flow becomes
unsteady
The majority of a physical problems are well within the turbulent regime!
Re = O(10
4
-10
9
)
Spatial/temporal complexity of turbulence problems scale as Re
3
Why are turbulent flows so complex?