No vortex in straight flows -- on the eigen-representations of velocity gradient

TL;DR

This paper investigates the eigen-representations of the velocity gradient tensor, clarifying their relation to local streamline patterns and vortex recognition, and proposes that parameters in the right eigen-representation effectively reveal streamline features.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of the right/left Schur forms of velocity gradient, linking tensor parameters to streamline patterns and enhancing vortex recognition methods.

Findings

Parameters in the right eigen-representation correlate well with local streamline patterns.

The tensorial expressions of Schur forms are derived and numerically verified.

Examples from DNS data demonstrate the practical relevance of the findings.

Abstract

Velocity gradient is the basis of many vortex recognition methods, such as Q criterion, $\Delta$ criterion, $\lambda_{2}$ criterion, $\lambda_{ci}$ criterion and $\Omega$ criterion, etc.. Except the $\lambda_{ci}$ criterion, all these criterions recognize vortices by designing various invariants, based on the Helmholtz decomposition that decomposes velocity gradient into strain rate and spin. In recent years, the intuition of 'no vortex in straight flows' has promoted people to analyze the vortex state directly from the velocity gradient, in which vortex can be distinguished from the situation that the velocity gradient has couple complex eigenvalues. A specious viewpoint to adopt the simple shear as an independent flow mode was emphasized by many authors, among them, Kolar proposed the triple decomposition of motion by extracting a so-called effective pure shearing motion; Li et al. introduced the so-called quaternion decomposition of velocity gradient and proposed the concept of eigen rotation; Liu et al. further mined the characteristic information of velocity gradient and put forward an effective algorithm of Liutex, and then developed the vortex recognition method. However, there is another explanation for the increasingly clear representation of velocity gradient, that is the local streamline pattern based on critical-point theory. In this paper, the tensorial expressions of the right/left real Schur forms of velocity gradient are clarified from the characteristic problem of velocity gradient. The relations between the involved parameters are derived and numerically verified. Comparing with the geometrical features of local streamline pattern, we confirm that the parameters in the right eigen-representation based on the right real Schur form of velocity gradient have good meanings to reveal the local streamline pattern. Some illustrative examples from the DNS data are presented.