Time persistency of floating particle clusters in free-surface turbulence

We study the dispersion of light particles floating on a flat shear-free surface of an open channel in which the flow is turbulent. This configuration mimics the motion of buoyant matter (e.g. phytoplankton, pollutants or nutrients) in water bodies when surface waves and ripples are smooth or absent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2013-05
Main Authors: Lovecchio, Salvatore, Marchioli, Cristian, Soldati, Alfredo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clusters
Computational fluid dynamics
Computer simulation
Direct numerical simulation
Floating structures
Fluid flow
Free surfaces
Mathematical models
Nutrients
Open channels
Particle tracking
Phytoplankton
Pollutants
Reynolds number
Stokes number
Surface waves
Turbulence
Turbulent flow
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Summary:We study the dispersion of light particles floating on a flat shear-free surface of an open channel in which the flow is turbulent. This configuration mimics the motion of buoyant matter (e.g. phytoplankton, pollutants or nutrients) in water bodies when surface waves and ripples are smooth or absent. We perform direct numerical simulation of turbulence coupled with Lagrangian particle tracking, considering different values of the shear Reynolds number (Re{\tau} = 171 and 509) and of the Stokes number (0.06 < St < 1 in viscous units). Results show that particle buoyancy induces clusters that evolve towards a long-term fractal distribution in a time much longer than the Lagrangian integral fluid time scale, indicating that such clusters over-live the surface turbulent structures which produced them. We quantify cluster dynamics, crucial when modeling dispersion in free-surface flow turbulence, via the time evolution of the cluster correlation dimension.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1305.3705