Excitation of inertial modes in a closed grid turbulence experiment under rotation
Lamriben, C.; Cortet, P.P.; Moisy, F.; Maas, L.R.M. (2011). Excitation of inertial modes in a closed grid turbulence experiment under rotation. Phys. Fluids 23(1). dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3540660 In: Physics of Fluids. American Institute of Physics: Woodbury, NY. ISSN 1070-6631; e-ISSN 1089-7666, more |   |
| Authors | | Top | - Lamriben, C.
- Cortet, P.P.
- Moisy, F.
- Maas, L.R.M., more
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| Abstract | We report an experimental study of the decay of grid-generated turbulence in a confined geometry submitted to a global rotation. Turbulence is generated by rapidly towing a grid in a parallelepipedic water tank. The velocity fields of a large number of independent decays are measured in a vertical plane parallel to the rotation axis using a corotating particle image velocimetry system. We first show that, when a "simple" grid is used, a significant amount of the kinetic energy (typically 50%) is stored in a reproducible flow composed of resonant inertial modes. The spatial structure of those inertial modes, extracted by band-pass filtering, is found compatible with the numerical results of L. R. M. Maas [Fluid Dyn. Res. 33, 373 (2003)]. The possible coupling between these modes and turbulence suggests that turbulence cannot be considered as freely decaying in this configuration. We demonstrate however that these inertial modes may be significantly reduced (down to 15% of the total energy) by adding a set of inner tanks attached to the grid. These results suggest that it is possible to produce an effectively freely decaying rotating turbulence in a confined geometry. (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3540660] |
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