Statistical Theories Of Turbulence

Part of the Princeton Aeronautical Paperback series designed to bring to students and research engineers outstanding portions of the twelve-volume High Speed Aerodynamics and Jet Propulsion series. These books have been prepared by direct reproduction of the text from the original series and no attempt has been made to provide introductory material or to eliminate cross reference to other portions of the original volumes. Originally published in 1961. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This volume contains the papers presented at the workshop on Statistical The ories and Computational Approaches to Turbulence: Modern Perspectives and Applications to Global-Scale Flows, held October 10-13, 2001, at Nagoya Uni versity, Nagoya, Japan. Because of recent developments in computational capabilities, the compu tational approach is showing the potential to resolve a much wider range of length and time scales in turbulent physical systems. Nevertheless, even with the largest supercomputers of the foreseeable future, development of adequate modeling techniques for at least some scales of motion will be necessary for practical computations of important problems such as weather forecasting and the prediction and control of global pollution. The more powerful the available machines become, the more demand there will be for precise prediction of the systems. This means that more precise and reliable knowledge of the underlying dynamics will become important, and that more efficient and precise numerical methods best adapted to the new generation of computers will be necessary. The understanding of the nature of unresolved scales then will playa key role in the modeling of turbulent motion. The challenge to turbulence theory here is to elucidate the physics or dynamics of those scales, in particular their sta tistical aspects, and thereby develop models on sound bases to reduce modeling ambiguity. The challenge to the computational method is to develop efficient algorithms suitable for the problems, the machines, and the developed models.

The term "turbulence” is used for a large variety of dynamical phenomena of fluids in motion whenever the details of the flow appear to be random and average properties are of primary interest. Just as wide ranging are the theoretical methods that have been applied towards a better understanding of fluid turbulence. In this book a number of these methods are described and applied to a broad range of problems from the transition to turbulence to asymptotic turbulence when the inertial part of the spectrum is fully developed. Statistical as well as nonstatistical treatments are presented, but a complete coverage of the subject is not attempted. The book will be of interest to scientists and engineers who wish to familiarize themselves with modern developments in theories of turbulence. The fact that the properties of turbulent fluid flow are addressed from very different points of view makes this volume rather unique among presently available books on turbulence.

A study is made of the spectrum of isotropic turbulence with the aid of the customary method of Fourier analysis. The spectrum of the turbulent motion is derived to the smallest wave lengths, that is, into the laminar region, and correlation functions and pressure fluctuations are calculated. A comparison with experimental results is included. Finally, an attempt is made to derive the numerical value of a constant characteristic of the energy dissipation in isotropic turbulence.

Most natural and industrial flows are turbulent. The atmosphere and oceans, automobile and aircraft engines, all provide examples of this ubiquitous phenomenon. In recent years, turbulence has become a very lively area of scientific research and application, and this work offers a grounding in the subject of turbulence, developing both the physical insight and the mathematical framework needed to express the theory. Providing a solid foundation in the key topics in turbulence, this valuable reference resource enables the reader to become a knowledgeable developer of predictive tools. This central and broad ranging topic would be of interest to graduate students in a broad range of subjects, including aeronautical and mechanical engineering, applied mathematics and the physical sciences. The accompanying solutions manual to the text also makes this a valuable teaching tool for lecturers and for practising engineers and scientists in computational and experimental and experimental fluid dynamics.