Spectral energy transfer analysis of a forced homogeneous isotropic turbulence using triple decomposition of velocity gradient tensor

Abstract

Triple decomposition of the velocity gradient tensor is exploited to investigate the role of the simple-shear, normal-strain, and rigid-body rotation, in the turbulent kinetic energy transfer of a forced, high-Reynolds-number homogeneous isotropic turbulent flow. Splitting the total energy flux into three elementary partial fluxes shows that the rigid-body rotation has a secondary contribution to turbulent kinetic energy transfer, while within 80% of the total energy flux is produced through the simple-shear and normal-strain processes. Energy is dominantly extracted through the shearing process from larger motion scales and injected into smaller scales by the normal-straining process. In addition, each partial energy flux contains a strong conservative part and a weak non-conservative part. Besides the total kinetic energy transfer, all partial energy fluxes also show scale-invariance behaviour over the inertial subrange. Statistically, total energy flux shows a strong correlation with the simple-shear and normal-strain processes. However, the relatively poor correlation between these two dominant processes, implies a fairly low efficiency for turbulent kinetic energy transfer. These results can provide new insights into sub-grid scale turbulence modelling based on the physical mechanism of simple-shear and normal-strain processes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.