Eslam Reda

By Zambri Harun and Eslam Reda Lotfy

Turbulence stands as one of the most complicated and attractive physical phenomena. The accumulated knowledge has shown turbulent flow to be composed of islands of vortices and uniform-momentum regions, which are coherent in both time and space. Research has been concentrated on these structures, their generation, evolution, and interaction with the mean flow. Different theories and conceptual models were proposed with the aim of controlling the boundary layer flow and improving numerical simulations. Here, we review the different classes of turbulence coherent structures and the presumable generation mechanisms for each. The conceptual models describing the generation of turbulence coherent structures are generally classified under two categories, namely, the bottom-up mechanisms and the top-down mechanisms. The first assumes turbulence to be generated near the surface by some sort of instabilities, whereas the second assigns an active role to the large outer layer structures, perhaps the turbulent bulges. Both categories of models coexist in the flow with the first dominating turbulence generation at low Reynolds number and the second at high Reynolds number, such as the case in the atmospheric boundary layer.

Part of the book: Turbulence and Related Phenomena