Appl. Math. Mech. -Engl. Ed.

30(2), 153–162 (2009)

DOI: 10.1007/s10483-009-0203-x
Applied Mathematics
Shanghai
c University and Springer-Verlag 2009
and Mechanics
(English Edition)

Large eddy simulation of turbulent statistical and transport

properties in stably stratified flows ∗

Xiang QIU ( )1,2 , Yong-xiang HUANG (
) , 1

Zhi-ming LU ( 
)1 , Yu-lu LIU ( ) 1

(1. Shanghai Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Shanghai University,

Shanghai 200072, P. R. China;
2. Department of Mathematics, School of Sciences, Shanghai University,
Shanghai 200444, P. R. China)

(Contributed by Yu-lu LIU)

Abstract Three dimensional large eddy simulation (LES) is performed in the inves-
tigation of stably stratified turbulence with a sharp thermal interface. Main results are
focused on the turbulent characteristic scale, statistical properties, transport properties,
and temporal and spatial evolution of the scalar field. Results show that the buoyancy
scale increases first, and then goes to a certain constant value. The stronger the mean
shear, the larger the buoyancy scale. The overturning scale increases with the flow, and
the mean shear improves the overturning scale. The flatness factor of temperature de-
parts from the Gaussian distribution in a fairly large region, and its statistical properties
are clearly different from those of the velocity fluctuations in strong stratified cases. Tur-
bulent mixing starts from small scale motions, and then extends to large scale motions.
Key words stratified turbulence, turbulent mixing, turbulent transport, turbulence
structure
Chinese Library Classification O357.5
2000 Mathematics Subject Classification 74K10, 74D05

Introduction
Stratified flows exist widely in the ocean, atmospheric boundary layers, and some lakes and
rivers on the lands. It is one of the most important flows in the geophysical research. Owing to
the increasing interest in environmental problems, recently, much attention has been paid to the
mechanism of turbulent mixing and transport in environmental flows. Turbulent mixing and
vertical flux in stratified flows become an important branch in the turbulence study, which is
of great significance to predict global warming and improve the local climatic model[1] , to solve
the problems in oceanic engineering and environment, acoustics, and military affairs, and to
forecast the diffusion of contaminations, especially the scalar diffusion in stratified water flows.
Besides the environmental and geophysical problems, practical problems, such as the design of
industrial equipments, involve stratified phenomena, and the elucidation of turbulent mixing
and transport in stratified flows is required.
∗ Received Jun. 25, 2008 / Revised Nov. 14, 2008
Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 10772110, 10742005)
Corresponding author Yu-lu LIU, Professor, Ph. D., E-mail: ylliu@staff.shu.edu.cn
154 Xiang QIU, Yong-xiang HUANG, Zhi-ming LU et al.

In the past 30 years, many experimental and numerical studies on stratified turbulence have
been carried out to investigate the properties of turbulent mixing, energy transfer, anisotropy,
and scalar and momentum transport in air and water stratified flows, for details, see Refs. [2-6].
It is well-known that numerical simulation has become one of the most important methods
in stratified flows as well as in the turbulence research. A number of direct numerical simulation
(DNS) studies on stratified turbulence mainly focused on the large scale structures[7-10] , the in-
teraction among local structures[11-12] , and turbulent counter-gradient heat transport[8-9,13-14] .
And also there are some researches of the LES. For instance, Kaltenbach et al.[15] investigated
the counter-gradient transport (CGT) in stably stratified turbulence, and suggested that fu-
ture research should focus on the effect of molecular diffusion of the turbulent CGT. Using
the LES coupled with a dynamic subgrid-scale (SGS) model, Dong et al.[16] investigated the
thermally-stratified shear turbulent channel flow with temperature oscillation on the bottom
wall. However, most of the previous studies have paid much attention on the continuously
stratified flows. Until now, there are still some arguments on the application of the DNS to the
stratified flows with high P r numbers in the thermal stratification and high Sc numbers in the
concentration case for the limited spatial resolution[13] .
In our previous paper[17] , we have investigated the characteristics of the turbulence velocity
and temperature fluctuations, and the evolution of the turbulent mixing layer, the turbulent
kinetic and potential energy, as well as the turbulent structure with the effects of the mean
shear and stratification. In this paper, we pay more attention to the statistical and transport
properties in the turbulence field. The evolution of characteristic scales, including the buoyancy
scale and the overturning scale, is considered in detail to describe the development of the strat-
ified turbulence. In addition, the scalar structure is also investigated to analyze the evolution
of the temperature field and the development of the local temperature structure.

1 Numerical methods

1.1 Physical model

Figure 1 shows the computational domain of the stably stratified grid-generated turbulence,
which is 102 cm×10 cm×10 cm (51M ×5M ×5M ) (respectively, in the streamwise, vertical, and
spanwise directions). A round turbulence-generating grid, on which the velocity components
are set equal to zero, is located 0.02 m downstream from the entrance. The mesh size M and
the radius of the round rod are 0.02 m and 0.0011 m, respectively.

Grid: M=2 cm

Hot y,V
5M

x,U g
z,W
Cold
5M

M 50M

Fig. 1 A schematic of the stably stratified turbulence

1.2 Governing equations

The governing equations, including the continuous, momentum and temperature transport
equations, are given as follows:

∂ui
= 0, (1)
∂xi
 Turbulent statistical and transport properties in stably stratified flows 155

∂ui ∂ui uj ∂p ∂ 2 ui ∂τij ρ

+ =− +ν + + gi , (2)
∂t ∂xi ∂xi ∂x2j ∂xj ρr
∂T ∂uj T ∂2T ∂qj
+ =α 2 + , (3)
∂t ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj

where the overbar denotes the spatial filter. The Smagorinsky-Lilly model is applied to the
subgrid scale stress,

Rkk
τij = Rij − δij , Rij = ui uj − ui uj ,
3
p Rkk
qj = T uj − T uj , P = + , (4)
ρ 3

where ui is the velocity component, p is the pressure, T is the temperature, and ρ is the density.
ρr is the environmental density. gi is the acceleration due to gravity. ν and α are the kinetic
viscosity and the thermal diffusion efficient, respectively.
The state equation takes the form,

ρ = ρr [1 − β(Tr )Tr + β(T )T ]. (5)

Here,

ρr = a0 + β(Tr )Tr , (6)

β(Tr ) β(T )
β(Tr ) = , β(T ) = , (7)
ρr ρr
β(T ) = (67 939.5 − 9 095.3T + 100.2T 2 − 1.12T 3 + 6.54 × 10−3 T 4 ) × 10−6 , (8)

where a0 is constant, and Tr is the environmental temperature of water.

1.3 Numerical schemes
The computational domain is 51M × 5M × 5M , and the mesh number is 1 970 000. The
initial condition of the velocity is induced by a mean velocity profile U (z) combined with the
initial turbulent intensity 15%. The initial temperature distribution T (z) is determined by dif-
ferent runs as shown in Table 1. And the no-reflection condition is applied to the outlet. The
no-slipping and no-penetration conditions are adopted for the upper, lower and side bound-
aries, which can help us to make a quantitative comparison between the measurements and
simulations.
The time integration of the N-S equations and transport equations for temperature is carried
out by the implicit scheme with second-order precision, and the time step is 0.002 s. The spatial
terms are approximated by a second-order central difference scheme in the momentum equation
and by a second-order windward scheme in the temperature state equation. The simulations
are performed by the comercial Fluent code of parallel edition in the Shanghai Supercomputer
Center, and the boundary conditions are introduced through the user defined function (UDF).
1.4 Computational runs
To investigate the effects of stratification on turbulent properties, three stratified conditions,
namely, neutral (Sh-I, Sh-II, Sh-III), weak (St(1)-I, St(1)-II, St(1)-III), and strong (St(2)-I,
St(2)-II, St(2)-III) stratifications (for details, see Table 1), are considered with the initial tem-
perature difference between the upper and lower streams corresponded to 0 K, 5 K, and 10 K,
respectively. The mean velocities for the upper and lower streams are set to the same value
of 0.125 m/s. The Reynolds number based on the mesh size, ReM (= U M /ν), is 2 500 for all
cases, where U is the mean velocity averaged in the cross-section.
156 Xiang QIU, Yong-xiang HUANG, Zhi-ming LU et al.

Table 1 Computational runs

Runs U /(m · s−1 ) ΔU/(m · s−1 ) ΔT /K ReM
Sh-I 0.125 0.0 0 2 500
Sh-II 0.125 0.02 0 2 500
Sh-III 0.125 0.05 0 2 500
St(1)-I 0.125 0.0 5 2 500
St(1)-II 0.125 0.02 5 2 500
St(1)-III 0.125 0.05 5 2 500
St(2)-I 0.125 0.0 10 2 500
St(2)-II 0.125 0.02 10 2 500
St(2)-III 0.125 0.05 10 2 500

1.5 Validation
To verify the results of this numerical method, the numerical results are compared to the
previous experimental data measured through the combined method of the laser Doppler ve-
locimeter (LDV) and resistance thermometer by setting the physical model and initial conditions
consistent with each other[13] .
Figure 2 shows the normalized mean temperatures at two sections, i.e., x/M = 14, 20,
respectively. Here, the symbol “Num” denotes the numerical result we get, and the symbol
“Exp” denotes the experimental result from Komori and Nagata[13]. It shows that our results
agree well with the previous experimental results.

1.2 1.2
Num Num
Exp Exp
0.8 0.8
T−T2

T−T2
∆T

∆T

0.4 0.4

0.0 0.0

−0.8 −0.4 0.0 0.4 0.8 −0.8 −0.4 0.0 0.4 0.8
y/M y/M
(a) x/M=14 (b) x/M=20

Fig. 2 Comparisons of dimensionless temperatures between the numerical and experimental results

2 Results and discussions

2.1 Characteristic scale

With the help of characteristic scales, we can further know about the turbulent properties
under normal conditions, especially about the vortex structure and dynamical properties of the
motion in complex turbulence. In stratified flows, there are many different characteristic scales
with specific physical meaning derived from the turbulent mixing process between the fluids of
different densities.
Generally, except the inertial force, the buoyancy force is particularly concerned when we
study the dynamics of stratified turbulence. The effects of the buoyancy force can be described
by the vertical density gradient or the temperature gradient. Therefore, the Brunt-Vaisala fre-
∂ρ 1/2
quency N = [−(g/ρ0 ) ∂y ] (defined by density) or N  = [−(g/T0 ) ∂T
∂y ]
1/2
(defined by tempera-
[18]
ture), also called the buoyancy frequency , is induced to describe the strength of stratification.
In linearly stratified flows, the buoyancy frequency changes slowly, but in the case of stratified
flow with a sharp interface, the buoyancy frequency changes rapidly with the mixing process.
 Turbulent statistical and transport properties in stably stratified flows 157

Figure 3 shows the evolution of the buoyancy frequency at the centerline of the symmetry
section. It shows that the buoyancy frequency decreases with the development of the flow, the
reason is that the buoyancy force decays with the development of the mixing process, but it is
obvious that buoyancy frequency decreases more rapidly in the near-grid region than that in
the far-grid region. Also we can find that the buoyancy frequency is a little larger in the cases
of strong stratification than in the weak cases, and the effect of the mean shear on the buoyancy
frequency is very weak. Although the buoyancy frequency decreases with the evolution of the
flow, the flow in the near-grid region is inertia-dominated, because the inertial force is much
larger than the buoyancy force, especially in the shearing cases. However, in the far-grid region,
the flow is buoyancy-dominated, because the inertial force is much smaller than the buoyancy
force.
2.0
St(1)-I
1.6 St(1)-II
St(1)-III
1.2 St(2)-I
St(2)-II
N

0.8

0.4

0.0
0 10 20 30 40 50
x/M

Fig. 3 Evolution of buoyancy frequency

As we know, when a fluid particle moves from the equilibrium position y0 to another position
y0 + ζ in the vertical direction, the change of the potential energy per unit volume is
g dρ  1
Ψ = − ζ 2  = ρ(y0 )ζ 2 N 2 , (9)
2 dy y0 2
where g is the gravity acceleration, and N is the buoyancy frequency mentioned above. For
the fluid particles in the same turbulence field, the vertical component of the turbulent kinetic
energy at position y0 is
1
K = ρ(y0 )v 2 , (10)
2
where v is the vertical fluctuating velocity. Suppose that we consider some certain fluid particles,
which move from position y0 to another position y0 + ζ and transform all the kinetic energy
into the potential energy. Then we get Ψ = K, i.e.,
 1/2 
v2 v
ζ= = . (11)
N2 N

Here, ζ can be defined as the buoyancy length scale, denoted as Lb = ζ = v /N. It is a
measurement of the upper limit at which the fluid particles, having the ambient kinetic energy,

can arrive in the vertical direction, against the temperature gradient. Here, v is the r.m.s. of
the vertical fluctuating velocity.
Similarly, we can define another length scale called the overturning scale or the turbulent

scale, denoted as Lt = θ /β. It is the scale representative of the vertical turbulent excursion of

a fluid particle. It is a measure of the local potential energy of the flow. Here, θ is the r.m.s.
of the fluctuating temperature, and β is the vertical temperature gradient.
Figures 4(a) and 4(b) show the evolution of the buoyancy scale and the overturning scale
in the streamwise direction. We can find that the buoyancy scale increases first, and then
158 Xiang QIU, Yong-xiang HUANG, Zhi-ming LU et al.

goes to a certain constant value. The stronger the mean shear, the larger the buoyancy scale.
However, the stronger the stratification, the smaller the buoyancy scale. Because the vertical
velocity fluctuation increases first, and then decays with the development of the flow[17] , at last

the decay rate of v is almost isochronous with the buoyancy frequency. The overturning scale
also increases with the development of the flow, and the mean shear improves the overturning
scale as well. Also we can find the evolution slopes in the lognormal coordinates (Fig. 5). The
slopes indicate the effects of the buoyancy force and the inertial force on the turbulent scales.
However, we notice that the inflexion of the two slopes is located in x/M = 15. It is much
earlier than the inflexion in the evolution of the mixing layer[17], which is located in x/M > 20.
The possible reason is that the evolution of the mixing layer shows the change of the mean
quantity; however, the evolution of the turbulent length scales exhibits the variation of the
fluctuating quantities under the effects of the competition between the buoyancy force and the
inertial force.
0.05 0.12 12
St(1)-I St(1)-I St(1)-I
0.04 St(1)-II 0.10 St(1)-II 10 St(1)-II
St(1)-III 0.08 St(1)-III 8 St(1)-III
0.03 St(2)-I St(2)-I

Lt/Lb
0.06 St(2)-I
Lb

Lt

St(2)-II St(2)-II 6 St(2)-II

0.02 0.04 4
0.01 0.02 2
0.00 0.00 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
x/M x/M x/M
(a) Buoyancy scale (b) Overturning scale (c) Ratio of Lt and Lb

Fig. 4 Evolution of buoyancy scale, overturning scale and their ratio

0.10

1E−2
St(1)-I
Lb

Lt

St(1)-I 0.01
St(1)-II St(1)-II
St(1)-III St(1)-III
St(2)-I St(2)-I
St(2)-II St(2)-II
1E−3
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
x/M x/M
(a) Buoyancy scale (b) Overturning scale

Fig. 5 Evolution of buoyancy scale and overturning scale (in lognormal coordinates)

Referred to Ref. [19], as Lt /Lb increases (Fig. 4(c)), the buoyancy effects change significantly,
which is coincident with the prediction here, because it is rapider for the overturning scale to
rise than for the buoyancy scale.
2.2 Statistical properties
Flatness factors and skewness factors are important statistical quantities in turbulent flows.
As we know, for the Gaussian distribution, the flatness factor is three while the skewness factor
is zero. However, for turbulence, its PDF deviates from the Gaussian distribution. In general,
flatness factors characterize the flatness of the PDF. We noticed that the bigger the flatness
factor, the more the intermittent velocity.
Figure 6 shows the distribution of the flatness factors of the streamwise and vertical velocity
fluctuations. The flatness factors of the streamwise velocity fluctuations are much larger than
the value 3 nearby the turbulence-generating grid. However, in the region far from the grid,
 Turbulent statistical and transport properties in stably stratified flows 159

because of the effect of the stratification, the flatness factors vibrate closely to the value 3. For
all the cases, the flatness factors of the vertical velocity fluctuations are close to the Gaussian
distribution. In Fig. 7, the results of the skewness factors show the same conclusions as those
of the flatness factors.
12 12
u(St(1)-I) v(St(1)-I)
u(St(2)-I) v(St(2)-I)
Flatness factor F(u)

Flatness factor F(v)

9 u(St(1)-II) 9 v(St(1)-II)
u(St(2)-II) v(St(2)-II)
6 u(St(1)-III) 6 v(St(1)-III)
u(St(2)-III) v(St(2)-III)
3 3

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
x/M x/M
(a) Streamwise fluctuation (b) Vertical fluctuation

Fig. 6 Flatness factors of velocity fluctuation

6 u(St(1)-I) 6 v(St(1)-I)
u(St(2)-I) v(St(2)-I)
Skewness factor S(u)

Skewness factor S(v)

4 u(St(1)-II) 4 v(St(1)-II)
u(St(2)-II) v(St(2)-II)
2 u(St(1)-III) 2 v(St(1)-III)
u(St(2)-III) v(St(2)-III)
0 0

2 2
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
x/M x/M
(a) Streamwise fluctuation (b) Vertical fluctuation

Fig. 7 Skewness factors of velocity fluctuation

The distributions of the flatness and skewness factors of the temperature fluctuations are
shown in Fig. 8. In almost all the regions, the flatness factors depart from the Gaussian distri-
bution. In addition, we find that the statistical properties of the temperature fluctuations are
different from those of the velocity fluctuations, which indicates that the temperature in the
stratified turbulence, especially in the strong stratified cases, is not a passive scalar, and the
diffusion of the temperature is not completely dominated by the velocity field.
6 3
St(1)-I
Skewness factor S(θ)

St(1)-II St(1)-I
Flatness factor F(θ)

5 2
St(1)-III St(1)-II
St(2)-I St(1)-III
4 1
St(2)-II
St(2)-III
3 0
St(2)-I
2 1 St(2)-II
St(2)-III
1 2
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
x/M x/M
(a) Flatness factor (b) Skewness factor

Fig. 8 Flatness factors and skewness factors of temperature fluctuation

160 Xiang QIU, Yong-xiang HUANG, Zhi-ming LU et al.

2.3 Vertical heat transport

The heat transport issue is an important issue in the study of the stratified turbulence.
Figure 9 shows the distribution of the vertical heat flux, which is normalized by the r.m.s.
of the velocity fluctuations multiplying the temperature fluctuations. The vertical heat flux
decreases gradually in the streamwise direction. The possible reason is that the turbulent
mixing makes the vertical density gradient small, and the vertical velocity fluctuations are
suppressed by the stratification effects. Also we notice that, in almost all the mixing regions,
the vertical heat flux is negative (vθ < 0), which reveals that the heat flux is mainly caused
by the fluid parcels with higher temperature moving downward (v < 0, θ > 0) and lower
temperature moving upward[7, 13](v > 0, θ < 0). This should be the principal behavior in the
mixing process. Obviously, also there are some fluid parcels with higher temperature moving
upward and lower temperature moving downward. However, these processes happen only in
the small-scale motions and in the local regions of the mixing layer[13].

0.2
St(1)-I
0.0 St(1)-II
St(1)-III
St(2)-I
vrmsθrms

0.2
St(2)-II
vθ

St(2)-III
0.4

0.6

0.8
0 10 20 30 40 50
x/M

Fig. 9 Distribution of vertical heat flux

2.4 Scalar structure

In this part, we know about the process of growth and development of the temperature
structure based on the temporal and spatial evolution of the scalar field, and analyze the effects
of the mean shear and stratification on the temperature structure, especially to study the
evolution of the large scale and small scale structures. We chose two different runs, St(1)-III
(ΔT =5 K, ΔU =0.05 m/s) and St(2)-III (ΔT =10 K, ΔU = 0.05 m/s).
Figure 10 shows the unsteady evolution of the temperature structure in the streamwise di-
rection with a time interval of 0.8 s, where the temperature is denoted by the variation of the
shade. The time t0 is just a certain time chosen to start the evolution. However, it can not be
the initial time in the computation. It can be found that, in the mixing process, the large-scale
temperature structures are interlaced, and there is a large temperature gradient between them.
On the contrary, there is a small temperature gradient among the small-scale temperature mo-
tions, especially among some certain small-scale structures far from the turbulence-generating
grid. This means that the turbulent mixing starts from small-scale motions, then, with the
development of the mixing layer, the turbulent mixing extends to large-scale motions rapidly,
because the mixing process is dominated by large-scale structures.
Comparing with the results in different runs, we also find that the large-scale structures
present to be inclined with the effect of the mean shear, and the strong stratification suppresses
small-scale structures rather than large temperature structures (Fig. 11).

3 Summary and conclusions

The characteristics of the turbulence velocity and temperature fluctuations, the evolution
of the turbulent mixing layer and turbulent kinetic and potential energy, and the evolution of
the turbulent structure with the effect of the mean shear and stratification, have been
 Turbulent statistical and transport properties in stably stratified flows 161

Fig. 10 Unsteady evolution of scalar structure in weak stratified case (St(1)-III)

Fig. 11 Evolution of temperature structure in strong stratified case (St(2)-III)

previously investigated by Qiu et al.[17] . In this paper, we have paid much more attention
to the statistical and transport properties in the turbulence field, and the evolution of the
characteristic scales, including the buoyancy scale and the overturning scale. In addition, the
scalar structure is also investigated to analyze the evolution of the temperature field, and the
contribution of the local temperature structure in the mixing process. The main results from
this study can be summarized as follows.
The buoyancy scale increases first, and then goes to a certain constant value. The stronger
the mean shear, the larger the buoyancy scale. However, it is suppressed by stratification.
The overturning scale is strengthened much more than the buoyancy scale. The ratio between
the overturning scale and the buoyancy scale increases with the stronger stratification, while it
decreases with the stronger mean shear. The flatness factor of the temperature departs from the
Gaussian distribution in a fairly large region, and its statistical properties are clearly different
from those of the velocity fluctuations in the strong stratified case.
162 Xiang QIU, Yong-xiang HUANG, Zhi-ming LU et al.

The vertical heat flux is mainly caused by the hot fluid parcels moving downward and the
cold fluid parcels moving upward. In the mixing process, the large-scale temperature structures
are interlaced, and there is a large temperature gradient between them. The turbulent mixing
starts from small scale motions, then spreads to large scale motions. The large scale structures
present to be inclined with the effect of the mean shear, and the strong stratification suppresses
small scale-structures rather than large temperature structures.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the Shanghai Supercomputer Center for
providing parallel computational resources. We are also grateful to Ms. Ping LI for her technical help
in the parallel computing. This work is also sponsored by the Shanghai Pujiang Program.

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