Work

A universal relation between intermittency and dissipation within and beyond homogeneous isotropic turbulence

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Fundamental quantities of turbulent flows, such as the dissipation parameter Cε and the intermittency parameter μ, are examined in relation to each other for a broad class of inhomogeneous turbulent flows. In the context of the energy cascade, it is known that Cε reflects its basic overall properties, while μ quantifies the intermittency of the cascade. Using an extensive hot-wire dataset of turbulent wakes, grid-generated turbulence, and an axisymmetric jet, we individually analyze these quantities as one-dimensional surrogates of the energy cascade, considering only data that exhibit consistent scaling behavior. We find that μ is inversely proportional to Cε, offering a new empirical principle that bridges the gap between large and small scales in arbitrary turbulent flows. The generalized framework presented here recovers the established values and trends reported for homogeneous isotropic turbulence and expands them to cover inhomogeneous situations.

Source: Physics of Fluids

DOI: 10.1063/5.0333125

Authors: F. H. Schmitt, A. Fuchs, J. Peinke, M. Obligado