Direct assessment of vorticity alignment with local and nonlocal strain rates in turbulent flows

Peter E. Hamlington, Jög Schumacher, Werner J.A. Dahm

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

64 Scopus citations

Abstract

A direct Biot-Savart integration is used to decompose the strain rate into its local and nonlocal constituents, allowing the vorticity alignment with the local and nonlocal strain rate eigenvectors to be investigated. These strain rate tensor constituents are evaluated in a turbulent flow using data from highly resolved direct numerical simulations. While the vorticity aligns preferentially with the intermediate eigenvector of the combined strain rate, as has been observed previously, the present results, for the first time, clearly show that the vorticity aligns with the most extensional eigenvector of the nonlocal strain rate. This, in turn, reveals a significant linear contribution to the vortex stretching dynamics in turbulent flows.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number111703
JournalPhysics of Fluids
Volume20
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 2008
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computational Mechanics
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes

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