A study of homogeneous turbulence within baroclinic context

Alexandre Pieri (1) , Claude Cambon (1) , Fabien S. Godeferd (1)

1 LMFA - Laboratoire de Mecanique des Fluides et d'Acoustique

We present direct numerical simulations and linear models for homogeneous turbulence submitted to the combined distorsions of constant vertical mean shear, vertical solid body rotation and vertical stable strati cation, representative of situations in geophysical ows. Depending on the parameters, optimally reduced to the Richardson number and a baroclinic parameter, the baroclinic instability is triggered and modi es the dynamics and structure of the ow. We characterize turbulence in these di erent states, which present speci c anisotropic features, using physical-space quantities (energies, correlation lengths, velocity structure functions) and spectral statistics (directional poloidal/toroidal/potential energy spectra).

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Alexandre Pieri, Claude Cambon, Fabien S. Godeferd. A study of homogeneous turbulence within baroclinic context. EUROMECH Colloquium 525 - Instabilities and transition in three-dimensional flows with rotation, Jun 2011, Ecully, France. ⟨hal-00600603⟩