Work

How walls shape dissipation intermittency

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Intermittency of energy dissipation has long been studied via high-order moments in homogeneous and isotropic turbulence (HIT), but not much where the boundary effects are explicitly included. Here, we derive two fundamental Reynolds number scaling expressions for dissipation moments in wall-bounded flows—one in the outer region where the boundary effects are weak and the other close to the walls where those effects are strong—and support these expressions by direct numerical simulations. Dissipation moments in the outer region follow universal power laws with exponents linked to anomalous scaling of velocity structure functions in HIT. In contrast, moments near the wall follow a bounded defect law, leading to a finite asymptotic limit without intermittency. For very large Reynolds numbers, the outer proposal predicts vanishing dissipation compared to that on the wall, highlighting the need for solid boundaries in generating Onsager-type singularities.

Source: Physical Review Research

DOI: 10.1103/lsvn-mfrb

Authors: Peng-Yu Duan, Xi Chen, Katepalli R. Sreenivasan

Institutions: Beihang University, New York University

Language: English

Topic: Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows

Subfield: Computational Mechanics

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,625

Funders: New York University, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities