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3.1 WHAT IS TURBULENCE?

Energy spectrum of
turbulence behind a grid

Figure 3.3

are of equal strength. These scales are named the Kolmogorov microscales
after the Russian scientist who carried out groundbreaking work on the structure of turbulence in the 1940s. At these scales work is performed against the
action of viscous stresses, so that the energy associated with small-scale eddy
motions is dissipated and converted into thermal internal energy. This dissipation results in increased energy losses associated with turbulent flows.
Dimensional analysis can be used to obtain ratios of the length, time and
velocity scales of the small and large eddies. The Kolmogorov microscales
can be expressed in terms of the rate of energy dissipation of a turbulent flow
and the fluid viscosity, which uses the notion that in every turbulent flow the
rate of production of turbulent energy has to be broadly in balance with its
rate of dissipation to prevent unlimited growth of turbulence energy. This
yields the following order of magnitude estimates of the ratios of small
length, time and velocity scales , , and large length, time and velocity
scales !, T, (Tennekes and Lumley, 1972; Reynolds in Lumley, 1989):
Length-scale ratio

Re!3/4
!

(3.1a)

Time-scale ratio

Re!1/2
T

(3.1b)

Velocity-scale ratio

Re!1/4

(3.1c)