ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PRODUCTION AND DISSIPATION

MECHANISMS OF ENSTROPHY AND SCALAR GRADIENT ACROSS THE

TURBULENT/NON-TURBULENT INTERFACE IN JETS

Carlos Bettencourt da Silva

Instituto Superior Técnico,
Pav. Mecânica I, 1o andar/esq./LASEF,
Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
Carlos.Silva@ist.utl.pt

Ricardo José Nuno dos Reis

Instituto Superior Técnico,
Pav. Mecânica I, 1o andar/esq./LASEF,
Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
rreis@aero.ist.utl.pt

José Carlos Fernandes Pereira

Instituto Superior Técnico,
Pav. Mecânica I, 1o andar/esq./LASEF,
Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
jcfpereira@mail.ist.utl.pt

ABSTRACT
The differences between the production and dissipa-
tion of enstrophy and scalar gradient across the turbu-
lent/nonturbulent (T/NT) interface are analysed using a
direct numerical simulation of a turbulent plane jet with
Reλ ≈ 120 and Sc = 0.7. Statistics of all the terms of
the transport equations of the enstrophy and square of the
scalar gradient are computed in relation to the T/NT in-
terface. It is shown that the entrainment process starts
with the amplification of the viscous/molecular diffusion of
enstrophy/square of the scalar gradient, is followed the am-
plification of the advection and finally, is controlled by the
production and viscous/molecular dissipation terms, that
dominate throughout the turbulent zone. The topology of
the vortices near the T/NT interface is analysed. It is shown
that in a region very close to the interface ((y −yI )/H < 0.1)
these vortices are preferentially aligned with the line tangent
to the interface.
INTRODUCTION
The mechanism of turbulent entrainment takes place
in a sharp interface region separating turbulent and non-
turbulent flow which is present in many turbulent flows such
as wakes, shear layers and jets.
In the classical description of the entrainment mecha-
nism the the most important role is played by the largest
flow vortices, originated by the growth of instabilities dur-
ing the transition to turbulence in mixing layers, jets and
wakes (Townsend, 1976). The entrainment mechanism was
thus seen as a large scale engulfment controlled by these
structures.
Recently it has been shown that, contrary to the classical
view, the mechanism of turbulent entrainment, what ever
that might be, is mainly controlled by relatively small scales,
as a process designated by ”nibbling” (see Mathew and Basu,
2002 and Westerweel et al. 2005), where the scale of these
small scale motions is of the order of the Taylor micro-scale.
A novel way to investigate the mechanisms of turbu-
lent entrainment consists in analysing the interface enve-
lope: a thin, highly convoluted surface layer that divides
the flow into its turbulent and nonturbulent (irrotational)
zones. Once the interface is defined, statistics in relation
to this interface can be obtained which are very different to
the ”classical” statistics found in turbulent flows dominated
by a turbulent/nonturbulent interface. This procedure has
been used by Bisset et al. (1998,2002), Westerweel et al.
(2002,2005) and Hunt et al. (2006).
The process of entrainment of a passive scalar field is also
of much interest in this context. The mechanisms of pro-
duction and dissipation of a passive scalar field have been
studied extensively and much is known about their differ-
ences in comparison with the velocity field (see e.g. Ruetsch
and Maxey, 1992). However, in the context of turbulent
entrainment not much is know about the dynamics of a pas-
sive scalar field and, to the Author’s knowledge a systematic
study of the entrainment mechanism in relation to the T/NT
interface is still lacking.
The goal of the present work is to analyse detailed dy-
namics of the enstrophy, and square of scalar gradient across
this turbulent/non-turbulent (T/NT) interface. The two
next sections detail the DNS used for this purpose and the
procedure used to defined the T/NT interface. The re-
sults presented here concern the terms of the enstrophy, and
square of scalar gradients across this interface, as well as the
shape of the large scale vortices in its vicinity.
DIRECT NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS OF TURBULENT
PLANE JETS
A turbulent plane jet direct numerical simulation (DNS)
was used in the present work to study the turbulent-
nonturbulent interface. The numerical algorithm uses
pseudo-spectral schemes for spatial discretization and a 3rd
order Runge-Kutta scheme for temporal advancement. The
same code was used recently by the authors in DNS of tur- 3
bulent plane jets as described in da Silva and Pereira (2004).
The present simulations include the computation of an ad-
vected or passive scalar field with Schmidt number Sc = 0.7, 2
and the resolution is about 26 million grid points. The sim-
ulation was fully dealiased using the 3/2 rule.
The scenario of transition to turbulence is very similar
to the one described in previous numerical simulations e.g.
1
Stanley et al. (2002), da Silva and Métais (2002), and da

y/H
Silva and Pereira (2004), and is characterised by the emer-
gence of Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices, both at the upper and 0
lower shear layers, which is followed by the appearance of
pairs of streamwise vortices connecting each two consecutive
pairs of Kelvin-Helmholtz rollers. The self-similar regime is -1
obtained at about T /Tref ≈ 20 and at this stage the Taylor
based Reynolds number is about Reλ ≈ 120 across the shear
layer.
Figure 1 (a) and (b) show contours of vorticity norm and
-2
passive scalar in a (x, y) plane at the self-similar regime. The
lower limit of the contours shown is equal to CΩ H/U1 = 0.7
and Cθ = 0.1 for the vorticity norm and passive scalar, re- -3
spectively. This allows to see the shape of the interface in
-2 -1 0 1
both cases. As can be seen the shape of the interface is highly y/H (a)
convoluted and its shape is very similar to the one found in
previous numerical studies (Bisset et al., 2002). Moreover,
there is a reasonable similarity between the interfaces de-
fined using either the vorticity norm or the passive scalar, 3
in agreement with previous studies (Bisset et al., 1998).
Figure 2 shows the mean streamwise velocity profile for
the plane jet DNS compared with experimental results from
Gutmark and Wygnansky (1976), Ramparian and Chan-
2
drasekhara (1985), Thomas and Prakash (1991) and the
direct numerical simulations from Stanley et al. (2002), da
Silva and Métais (2002), and da Silva and Pereira (2004). 1
A similar comparison was made for all the components of
the Reynolds stress tensor (not shown). The agreement be-
y/H

tween the results from the present DNS results and all the 0
data available is very good.
The spatial 3D energy and scalar variance spectra show
a region of −5/3 region followed by a smooth decay at high
wave numbers. The product of maximum resolved wave-
-1
number to the Kolmogorov micro-scale as Batchelor micro-
scales is kmax η ≈ 1.4, and kmax ηB ≈ 1.3, where η and ηB
are the Kolmogorov and Batchelor micro-scales, respectively. -2
Finally, figure 3 shows probability density functions (PDFs)
of passive scalar across the jet shear layer. The PDFs are of
a non-marching type, which is consistent with several exper- -3
imental and numerical works e.g. Rogers and Moser (1994), -2 -1 0 1
and Karasso and Mungal (1996). y/H (b)
The results above show that the present DNS is well re-
solved, both at the large and small scales of motion, and
Figure 1: Contours of vorticity modulus (a) and passive
representative of a turbulent plane jet.
scalar (b) at a (x, y) plane from the present turbulent plane
jet DNS.
DETECTION OF THE TURBULENT/NONTURBULENT
INTERFACE the interface envelope we used a similar procedure as de-
The T/NT interface can be defined either using the vor- scribed in previous works e.g. Bisset et al. (1998,2002) and
ticity norm as in Bisset et al. (2002) or using a scalar Westerweel et al. (2002,2005). It consists in the following
or concentration field as in Westerweel et al. (2002,2005). steps: (i) detection of the surface envelope using the com-
Both methods were used with similar results in the present puted vorticity norm or the passive scalar and the detection
work, with CΩ H/U1 = 0.7 for the vorticity (as in Bisset et threshold, (ii) remotion of ”ambient fluid” that appears as
al., 2002)), and Cθ = 0.1 for the scalar. ”holes” in the jet, (iii) computation of the ”interface statis-
In order to make statistics in relation to the location of tics” i.e. statistics in relation to the relative position of the
 vection, enstrophy production, enstrophy viscous diffusion,
and enstrophy viscous dissipation, respectively.
1 Gutmark 1976
In a similar way one can define and equation for the
Ramparian 1985 evolution of the square of the scalar gradient 21 Gi Gi , where
Stanley 2001 ∂θ
Gi = ∂x is the scalar gradient. This equation reads,
0.8 da Silva 2002 j
da Silva 2004
<u(y)>/UC

Present work


1 1
0.6 ∂ G G
2 i i
∂ GG
2 i i
+ Uj =
∂t ∂xj
0.4 1


∂2 G G
2 i i ∂Gi ∂Gi
−Gi Gj Sij + γ −γ , (2)
∂xj ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj
0.2

where γ is the scalar diffusivity. In equation (2) the terms

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
represent, the square of scalar gradient temporal variation,
y/δ0.5 advection, production, molecular diffusion, and molecular
dissipation, respectively.
Figure 2: Mean streamwise velocity profile at the self-similar
regime of the jet compared to several numerical and experi- Classical mean profiles of terms from the enstrophy and
mental results. square of scalar gradient equations
Figure 4 shows mean profiles of the terms from the
T/Tref=20.2 enstrophy transport equation using ”classical” averages as
3
y/δθ=0.00
in da Silva and Pereira (2004). In the irrotational region
y/δθ=0.25 (|y/H| > 1.5 − 1.8), the mean value of all the terms is neg-
2.5 y/δθ=0.50 ligible, as expected. In the turbulent region, on the other
y/δθ=0.75
hand, the mean advective and viscous diffusion terms are
2
y/δθ=1.00
y/δθ=1.25 also negligible for all values of y/H, even at the borders of
Pdf(θ)

y/δθ=1.50 the turbulent/non-turbulent region (|y|/H ≈ 1.5 − 1.8), and

1.5
the mean enstrophy is dominated by a global balance be-
tween enstrophy production and viscous dissipation. A sim-
1
ilar (approximate) balance between production/dissipation
is known to take place in isotropic turbulence (even in sta-
0.5
tistically non stationary turbulence e.g. decaying isotropic
turbulence).
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
θ
<Uj∂/∂xj(Ω /2)>
2
30
<ΩiΩjSij>
Figure 3: Probability density functions (PDFs) of passive 25
<ν ∂2/∂xj∂xj(Ω2/2)>
scalar across the jet shear layer in the self-similar regime. 20 2
<-ν (∂Ωi/∂xj) >
Enstrophy eq. terms

15
interface yI . It was observed that with these thresholds both
methods lead to very similar results concerning the shape 10

and magnitudes of the vorticity components. 5

The mean profiles of vorticity modulus and each vorticity 0

component are very similar to the ones found by Bisset et -5
al. (1998,2002) and Westerweel et al. (2002,2005) (not -10
shown). In particular, one observes the existence of the well
-15
known peak at the Ωz and |Ωz | vorticities just after the
-20
T/NT interface, inside the turbulent region.
-25

-30
-2 -1 0 1 2
RESULTS
1
y/H
The dynamics of the enstrophy ΩΩ ,
2 i i
where Ωi =
∂U
εijk ∂x j is the curl of the velocity field Ui , can be studied
k
through the analysis of its transport equation, Figure 4: Mean profiles of terms from the enstrophy equation
1
Ω Ω , in the turbulent plane jet.
2 i i

1

1

The figure 5 shows a similar plot but for the terms of
∂ Ω Ω
2 i i
∂ ΩΩ
2 i i
+ Uj = the square of the scalar gradient transport equation. As can
∂t ∂xj be seen a similar observation can be made for the evolution


∂2 1
Ω Ω ∂Ωi ∂Ωi of the square of the scalar gradient i.e. in the mean, both
2 i i
Ωi Ωj Sij + ν −ν , (1) the advection and molecular dissipation terms are negligible,
∂xj ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj
and the mean square of the scalar gradient is dominated by

∂Ui ∂Uj
 an approximate balance between the production and molec-
1
where Sij = 2 ∂xj
+ ∂xi
is the rate of strain tensor ular dissipation terms.
and ν is the kinematic viscosity. The terms from equation In order to analyse more closely the dynamics of the
(1) stand for enstrophy temporal variation, enstrophy ad- transport of enstrophy and scalar gradient in relation to the
 other terms are seen to be playing an important role near
<Uj∂/∂xj(G /2)> the T/NT interface. First, the enstrophy advection is quite
2
30
<-GiGjSij> important very close to the interface (y − yI )/H = 0. This
25
<γ ∂ /∂xj∂xj(G /2)> may seem that the large scale flow structures, which are
2 2
Scalar gradient eq. terms

20
<-γ (∂Gi/∂xj) >
15
10
5 more with small scale motions, displays a small positive peak
0
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
-30
-2 -1 0 1
y/H
Figure 5: Mean profiles of terms from the scalar gradient
equation 21 Gi Gi , in the turbulent plane jet;
T/NT interface it is instructive to analyse the mean of the
terms from their transport equation across the T/NT inter-
face as described below.
Mean profiles of terms from the enstrophy and square of
scalar gradient equations in relation to the T/NT interface
Figure 6 shows several mean profiles as a function of the
distance from the T/NT interface. We denote these means
as <>I to distinguish them from the classical means <>.
The procedure to obtain these means is very similar to the
one used in reference (2005). The enstrophy Ω2 = Ωi Ωi
and strain S 2 = Sij Sij increase until they reach a plateau
at the turbulent region. On the other hand the square of
the scalar gradient G2 = Gi Gi has a very intense peak very
close to the T/NT interface before it reaches its turbulent
value. This is the first fact showing that there are indeed
big differenced between the dynamics of the enstrophy and
scalar gradient during the entrainment process.
2
connected to the most important advection mechanisms in
turbulence, are having an active role during the entrain-
ment. Secondly, the viscous diffusion, which is associated
right at the interface. This shows that indeed viscous diffu-
sion acts as a source of enstrophy before other terms begin to
act (notice that the viscous diffusion is even more important
than the enstrophy production during this initial transition
phase).
The mean profiles of the terms from the square of scalar
gradient in relation to the T/NT interface are shown in fig-
ure 8. Here one sees that the advection term, associated with
2
large scale engulfment, is even more important for the evo-
lution of the scalar gradient than is the similar term in the
enstrophy equation. Indeed, one sees that near the interface
the dynamics of the square of scalar gradient is mainly com-
manded by this term, which is about two times as big as any
of the remaining terms. As was the case before for the en-
strophy, the molecular diffusion term is the first to manifest
itself when approaching the T/NT interface, which shows
that indeed it is a diffusion process that starts the whole en-
trainment process. The molecular diffusion then decreases
the level of square of scalar gradient when the other terms
start to dominate the process. The production and dissipa-
tion terms attain peaks just after the T/NT interface, and
then fall in the core of the turbulent region, where, as be-
fore for the enstrophy, the advection and molecular diffusion
terms are negligible.
This suggests that there are indeed big differences be-
tween the process of entrainment of velocity and of a given
passive scalar. In isotropic turbulence the different dynam-
ics of the enstrophy and square of scalar gradient have been
studied extensively since the paper by Ruetsch and Maxey
(1991).
<Uj∂/∂xj(Ω2/2)>I
25
<ΩiΩjSij>I
2
<ν ∂ /∂xj∂xj(Ω /2)>I
20 2

2
15 <-ν (∂Ωi/∂xj) >I
Enstrophy eq. terms

60
<Ω2>I
<S2>I 10
2
<G >I 5

40 0

-5

-10

20 -15

-20

-25
-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4

0
-0.2 0 0.2
(y-yI)/H
Figure 6: Enstrophy, strain and square of the scalar gradient
as a function of the distance from the T/NT interface.
The mean profiles of the terms from the enstrophy trans-
port equation are shown in figure 7. Here, the production
and viscous dissipation of enstrophy also dominate the tur-
bulent flow region, but contrary to the classical means, the
(y-yI)/H
0.4
Figure 7: Mean profiles of terms from the enstrophy trans-
port equation as a function of the distance from the T/NT
interface (y − yI )/H = 0.
Topology of the large-scale vortices near the T/NT interface
As shown before, there are several processes that gov-
ern the entrainment for the velocity and scalar fields. First,

<Uj∂/∂xj(G /2)>I
<-GiGjSij>I
100
<γ ∂2/∂xj∂xj(G2/2)>I
Scalar gradient eq. terms
<-γ (∂Gi/∂xj) >I
50
0
-50
-100
-0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2
(y-yI)/H
Figure 8: Mean profiles of terms from the square of the
scalar gradient as a function of the distance from the T/NT
interface (y − yI )/H = 0.
the process seems to be initiated by the emergence of vis-
cous/molecular diffusion of enstrophy/square of scalar gra-
dient. Immediately afterwords, the advection of enstro-
phy/square of scalar gradient, supposedly dominated by
large scales, takes place. After this the production and dis-
sipation overshadow all the other terms, a fact that persists
inside the fully turbulent region.
It is therefore important to identify the coherent struc-
tures that are most responsible for this entrainment process.
In particular, it is important to described their topology
and to see how it changes in relation to the T/NT interface.
Many authors analysed in quite a lot of detail the topology
of the coherent structures in turbulent flows, particularly in
isotropic turbulence e.g. Jimenez et al. (1993,1998).
An analysis of the topology of the vortices as done in
Jimenez et al. (1993,1998) in isotropic turbulence was made
here, where the results obtained were analysed as function
of the T/NT interface. The tracking procedure used to iden-
tify the vortices was first tested in an isotropic turbulence
data bank used recently by da Silva and Pereira (2007). The
values of the radius and length of the vortices are in excel-
lent agreement with the values obtained in Jimenez et al.
(1993,1998).
Figure 9 shows the probability density function of the
norm of the cosine of the angle between the vorticity vector
~ of the large scale structures in the vicinity of the T/NT
Ω briefs, Centre for Turbulence Research, Stanford, 1988.
interface (for (y − yI )/H < 0.1) and of a vector L ~ tangent
to the interface, |cos(Ω ~ × L)|.
~ The PDF shows that the
most probable values are close to ≈ 1.0 which shows that
the larger flow vortices close to the T/NT interface tend to
parallel to this interface.
CONCLUSIONS
Several mechanisms govern the entrainment for the veloc-
ity and scalar fields. First, the process seems to be initiated
by the emergence of viscous/molecular diffusion of enstro-
phy/square of scalar gradient. Immediately afterwords, the
advection of enstrophy/square of scalar gradient, supposedly
dominated by large scales, become the dominating phenom-
ena. Finally, the production and dissipation become much
more important than the other terms. In the fully turbulent
region the advection and molecular diffusion is negligible
0.05
2
2
0.04
0.03
PDF
0.02
0.01
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0.3 0.4
|Cos(Ω^L)|
Figure 9: Probability density function (PDF) of the modulus
~ and
of the cosine of the angle between the vorticity vector Ω
~
the line L tangent to the T/NT interface. The PDF was
computed using data from a flow region very close to the
interface with (y − yI )/H < 0.1.
and the dynamics of the enstrophy and square of scalar
gradient are dominated entirely by the production and vis-
cous/molecular dissipation.
Finally, the topology of the vortices near the T/NT in-
terface ((y − yI )/H < 0.1) shows that they are preferentially
aligned with a line tangent to the interface.
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