Hierarchical structures in fully developed turbulence

Abstract

Analysis of the probability density functions (PDFs) of the velocity increment dvℓ and of their deformation is used to reveal the statistical structure of the intermittent energy cascade dynamics of turbulence. By analyzing a series of turbulent data sets including that of an experiment of fully developed low temperature helium turbulent gas flow (Belin, Tabeling, & Willaime, Physica D 93, 52, 1996), of a three-dimensional isotropic Navier-Stokes simulation with a resolution of 2563 (Cao, Chen, & She, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3711, 1996) and of a GOY shell model simulation (Leveque & She, Phys. Rev. E 55, 1997) of a very big sample size (up to 5 billions), the validity of the Hierarchical Structure model (She & Leveque, Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 366, 1994) for the inertial-range is firmly demonstrated. Furthermore, it is shown that parameters in the Hierarchical Structure model can be reliably measured and used to characterize the cascade process. The physical interpretations of the parameters then allow to describe differential changes in different turbulent systems so as to address non-universal features of turbulent systems. It is proposed that the above study provides a framework for the study of non-homogeneous turbulence. A convergence study of moments and scaling exponents is also carried out with detailed analysis of effects of finite statistical sample size. A quantity Pmin is introduced to characterize the resolution of a PDF, and hence the sample size. The fact that any reported scaling exponent depends on the PDF resolution suggests that the validation (or rejection) of a model of turbulence needs to carry out a resolution dependence analysis on its scaling prediction.