Coherent structures at the origin of time irreversibility in wall turbulence

TL;DR

This study introduces an Eulerian multiscale analysis of time irreversibility in wall turbulence, revealing its connection to coherent structures and different flow scales, which advances understanding and modeling of turbulent flows.

Contribution

First Eulerian multiscale analysis linking time irreversibility to coherent structures in wall-bounded turbulence, differing from previous Lagrangian approaches.

Findings

Irreversibility linked to inner spectral peak from small-scale structures near the wall.

Stronger irreversibility associated with outer spectral peak from larger flow scales.

Results enable new modeling and control strategies for wall turbulence.

Abstract

Time irreversibility is a distinctive feature of non-equilibrium phenomena such as turbulent flows, where irreversibility is mainly associated with an energy cascade process. An Eulerian, multiscale analysis of time irreversibility in wall-bounded turbulence is proposed in this study, which differs from previous works relying on a Lagrangian approach and mainly focusing on homogeneous turbulence. Outcomes reveal a strong connection between irreversibility levels and coherent structures in both turbulent channel and boundary layer flows. In the near-wall region, irreversibility is directly related to the inner spectral peak originating from small-scale turbulent structures in the buffer layer. Conversely, stronger irreversibility is found in correspondence of the outer spectral peak originating from larger turbulent flow scales far from the wall. Our results represent a first effort to characterize Eulerian TI in wall-bounded turbulent flows, thus paving the way for new developments in wall-turbulence modeling and control accounting for broken temporal symmetry.