Past Event: Babuška Forum

The role of scale separation in the growth of interfaces in turbulent flows

Fabrizio Bisetti, ICES, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, UT Austin

Abstract

The main distinctive feature of turbulent flows is scale separation. However defined and measured, the smallest fluid motions are orders of magnitude smaller than the largest ones, posing tremendous challenges to our understanding, simulation, and modeling of turbulence. In this talk I will explore the concept of scale separation as it affects and controls the growth of interfaces that separate reactants and products in turbulent reactive flows. Based on large scale simulations of the reactive Navier-Stokes equations, we show that the Reynolds number, which is a measure of scale separation, controls the overall rate of conversion by scaling the area of the interface’s surface. Bio Dr. Bisetti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a Laurea in Mechanical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy. He received M.S.E and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California at Berkeley in 2002 and 2007, respectively. Dr. Bisetti’s research interests are in fluid mechanics, reactive flows, turbulence, plasmas, high-performance computing, uncertainty quantification, and numerical methods.