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Dynamics of spatially developing turbulent/turbulent interfaces in the absence of mean shear

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2025

Pedro Domingues Alves Open the ORCID record for Pedro Domingues Alves [Opens in a new window] ,
Marco Zecchetto Open the ORCID record for Marco Zecchetto [Opens in a new window] ,
Oliver Buxton Open the ORCID record for Oliver Buxton [Opens in a new window]  and
Carlos Bettencourt da Silva Open the ORCID record for Carlos Bettencourt da Silva [Opens in a new window]
Pedro Domingues Alves
Affiliation:
LAETA, IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
Marco Zecchetto
Affiliation:
LAETA, IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
Oliver Buxton
Affiliation:
Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Carlos Bettencourt da Silva*
Affiliation:
LAETA, IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
*
Corresponding author: Carlos Bettencourt da Silva, carlos.silva@tecnico.ulisboa.pt
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Abstract

Spatially evolving turbulent/turbulent interfaces (TTIs) in the absence of mean shear are studied using direct numerical simulation (DNS). To this end, a novel approach was developed, allowing for six different TTIs to be created with a Taylor-based Reynolds number in the range of $146 \lesssim {Re}_{\lambda }\lesssim 296$. The analysis of classical statistics of turbulence intensity, fluctuating vorticity and integral length scale clearly indicates that one of the two distinct turbulent regions bounding the interface tends to dominate the other one. The half-width thickness is found to be dependent on the turbulent properties of each layer, ultimately suggesting that the large-scale quantities dictate the spreading of each turbulent region. Small scale quantities, e.g. the enstrophy, exhibit an universal conditional mean profile when normalised by the local Kolmogorov (velocity and time) scales of motion. In contrast, the large-scale properties of the flow do not modify the enstrophy statistics. Additionally, when taking the difference of fluctuating vorticity levels on each layer ad extremum, profiles typical of turbulent/non-turbulent interfaces (TNTIs) are observed. The budget terms of enstrophy and rate-of-strain magnitude support these findings.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Turbulence theory Turbulent Flows: Turbulence simulation Turbulent Flows: Isotropic turbulence

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JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 1022 , 10 November 2025 , A9
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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