Turbulent mixing in a supercritical CO$_2$ shear layer is examined using both experimental and numerical methods. Boundary conditions are selected to focus on the rarely studied near-critical regime, where thermophysical properties vary nonlinearly with respect to temperature and pressure. Experimental results are obtained via Raman spectroscopy and shadowgraphy, while numerical results are obtained via direct numerical simulation. The shear layer growth rate is found to be 0.2. Additionally, density profiles indicate a relaxation of density gradients between the mixed fluid and heavy fluid as the flow evolves downstream, which runs counter to existing supercritical shear layer data in the literature. The computational results identify significant anisotropy in the turbulence in the shear layer, which is discussed in terms of the development of regions of high density gradient magnitude. The Reynolds-averaged enstrophy budget at various streamwise locations indicates no significant dilatational or baroclinic contribution within the shear layer.

An important parameter characterising the synchronisation of turbulent flows is the threshold coupling wavenumber. This study investigates the relationship between the threshold coupling wavenumber and the leading Lyapunov vector using large eddy simulations and the SABRA model. Various subgrid-scale stress models, Reynolds numbers and different coupling methods are examined. A new scaling relation is identified for the leading Lyapunov exponents in large eddy simulations, showing that they approximate those of filtered direct numerical simulations. This interpretation provides a physical basis for results related to the Lyapunov exponents of large eddy simulations, including those related to synchronisation. Synchronisation experiments show that the peak wavenumber of the energy spectrum of the leading Lyapunov vector coincides with the threshold coupling wavenumber, in large eddy simulations of box turbulence with standard Smagorinsky or dynamic mixed models as well as in the SABRA model, replicating results from direct numerical simulations of box turbulence. Although the dynamic Smagorinsky model exhibits different behaviour, the totality of the results suggests that the relationship is an intrinsic property of a certain class of chaotic systems. We also confirm that conditional Lyapunov exponents characterise the synchronisation process in indirectly coupled systems as they do in directly coupled ones, with their values insensitive to the nature of the master flow. These findings advance the understanding of the role of the Lyapunov vector in the synchronisation of turbulence.

Estimation of near-wall turbulence in channel flow from outer observations is investigated using adjoint-variational data assimilation. We first consider fully resolved velocity data, starting at a distance from the wall. By enforcing the estimated flow to exactly satisfy the Navier–Stokes equations, we seek a statistically stationary turbulent state that reproduces the instantaneous outer measurements. Such an estimated state provides full access to the unknown near-wall turbulence, including the wall shear stresses and pressure. When the first observation is within 50 viscous units from the wall, the correlation coefficient between the true and estimated state exceeds 95 %. As the observations are further separated from the wall, at 90 viscous units, the accuracy of the assimilated wall stresses decreases to 40 % at the wall. This trend is nearly independent of the Reynolds number. The Fourier spectrum of the estimation error is qualitatively consistent with the coherence spectrum between the outer and the inner state variables: observed long wavelength structures in the outer flow have deeper coherence into the unobserved near-wall region and, therefore, the error is lowest at large scales. Nevertheless, the adjoint-variational approach provides a more rigorous quantification of the capacity to accurately predict the instantaneous near-wall turbulence from outer measurements. Lastly, we demonstrate the robustness of the estimation accuracy using filtered and sub-sampled outer observations.

When turbulent convection interacts with a turbulent shear flow, the cores of convective cells become aligned with the mean current, and these cells (which span the height of the domain) may interact with motions closer to the solid boundary. In this work, we use coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian direct numerical simulations of a turbulent channel flow to demonstrate that, under conditions of turbulent mixed convection, interactions between motions associated with ejections and low-speed streaks near the solid boundary and coherent superstructures in the interior of the flow interact and lead to significant vertical transport of strongly settling Lagrangian particles. We show that the primary suspension mechanism is associated with strong ejection events (canonical low-speed streaks and hairpin vortices characterised by $u'\lt 0$ and $w'\gt 0$, where $u'$ and $w'$ are the streamwise and vertical turbulent velocity fluctuations), whereas secondary suspension is strongly associated with large-scale plume structures aligned with the mean shear (characterised by $w'\gt 0$ and $\theta '\gt 0$, where $\theta$ represents temperature fluctuations). This coupling, which is absent in the limiting cases (pure channel flow or free convection) is shown to lead to a sudden increase in the interior concentration profiles as ${Ri}_\tau$, the friction Richardson number, increases, resulting in concentrations that are larger by roughly an order of magnitude at the channel midplane.

It is generally accepted that the evolution of the deep-water surface gravity wave spectrum is governed by quartet resonant and quasi-resonant interactions. However, it has also been reported in both experimental and computational studies that non-resonant triad interactions can play a role, e.g. generation of bound waves. In this study, we investigate the effects of triad and quartet interactions on the spectral evolution, by numerically tracking the contributions from quadratic and cubic terms in the dynamical equation. In a finite time interval, we find that the contribution from triad interactions follows the trend of that from quartet resonances (with comparable magnitude) for most wavenumbers, except that it peaks at low wavenumbers with very low initial energy. This result reveals two effects of triad interactions. (1) The non-resonant triad interactions can be connected to form quartet resonant interactions (hence exhibiting the comparable trend), which is a reflection of the normal form transformation applied in wave turbulence theory of surface gravity waves. (2) The triad interactions can fill energy into the low-energy portion of the spectrum (low wavenumber part in this case) on a very fast time scale, with energy distributed in both bound and free modes at the same wavenumber. We further analyse the latter mechanism using a simple model with two initially active modes in the wavenumber domain. Analytical formulae describing the distribution of energy in free and bound modes are provided, along with numerical validations.