Evolution of geometric structures in intense turbulence

TL;DR

This paper investigates how geometric structures like lines, planes, and volumes evolve in intense turbulence, revealing that the eddy's characteristic time scale governs their evolution, especially at high turbulence levels.

Contribution

It provides new measurements linking the evolution of geometric structures to turbulence time scales in high-intensity flows.

Findings

The eddy's initial characteristic time scale predicts the evolution of structures.

Neglecting initial separation is valid only at very high turbulence levels.

The study offers insights into turbulence structure dynamics.

Abstract

We report measurements of the evolution of lines, planes, and volumes in an intensely turbulent laboratory flow using high-speed particle tracking. We find that the classical characteristic time scale of an eddy at the initial scale of the object considered is the natural time scale for the subsequent evolution. The initial separation may only be neglected if this time scale is much smaller than the largest turbulence time scale, implying extremely high turbulence levels.