An experimental study of turbulent relative dispersion models

Nicholas T. Ouellette (1) , Haitao Xu (1) , Mickaël Bourgoin (2) , Eberhard Bodenschatz (1, 3)

1 LASSP - Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics [Ithaca]
2 LEGI - Laboratoire des Écoulements Géophysiques et Industriels [Grenoble]
3 MPIDS - Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization

We report measurements of the spreading rate of pairs of tracer particles in an intensely turbulent laboratory water flow. We compare our measurements of this turbulent relative dispersion with the longstanding work of Richardson and Batchelor, and find excellent agreement with Batchelor's predictions. The distance neighbour function, the probability density function of the relative dispersion, is measured and compared with existing models. We also investigate the recently proposed exit time analysis of relative dispersion.

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

Nicholas T. Ouellette, Haitao Xu, Mickaël Bourgoin, Eberhard Bodenschatz. An experimental study of turbulent relative dispersion models. New Journal of Physics, 2006, 8, pp.109. ⟨10.1088/1367-2630/8/6/109⟩. ⟨hal-00492354⟩