An algebraic model for nonisotropic turbulent dissipation rate in Reynolds stress

closures
Magnus Hallbäck, Johan Groth, and Arne V. Johansson

Citation: Physics of Fluids A: Fluid Dynamics 2, 1859 (1990); doi: 10.1063/1.857660

View online: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.857660
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Published by the American Institute of Physics

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An algebraic model for nonisotropic turbulent dissipation rate
in Reynolds stress closures
Magnus Hallb~ck, Johan Groth, and Arne V. Johansson
Department 0/ Mechanics, The Royal Institute o/Technology, S-1OO 44 Stockholm, Sweden
(Received 6 December 1988; accepted 2 May 1990)
A method to account for effects of an anisotropic dissipation rate in second-order moment
closures of turbulent flows is presented. The modeled transport equations for the Reynolds
stresses and the scalar dissipation rate are supplemented by nonlinear algebraic relations, in
which the anisotropies of the dissipation rate tensor are expressed in the anisotropies of the
Reynolds stress tensor. Symmetry and other constraints reduce the number of undetermined
coefficients to one. It is shown that the model correctly describes the initial behavior of a
suddenly distorted turbulence provided that the model parameter assumes a value of i. The
model is compared with full numerical simulations of three basic types of strained
homogeneous turbulence, and is shown to give good agreement with these data. The present
approach of isolating the effects of anisotropic dissipation rate in second-order moment
closures is a step toward improved modeling of the energy redistribution terms in the Reynolds
stress transport equations, and could also be used for improved modeling of the scalar
dissipation rate equation.

I. INTRODUCTION pressure-strain-rate terms, and the underlying intermittent

Turbulent boundary layers, channel flows, and other flow structures contributing to the spatially averaged mean
wall-bounded flows exhibit a strongly nonisotropic energy value, have been made through the use of computer-genera-
distribution in the near-wall region. This is also true far away ted databases for a turbulent shear flow (Brasseur and
from walls when the flow is, or has been, subjected to mean Lee 2 ). For instance, it is shown that the correlation between
strain or rotation. The nonisotropic character of such flows the "rapid" and "slow" parts of the fluctuating pressure is
gives rise to difficult problems in the realm of turbulence very low due to a large difference in scales. This supports the
modeling. The problem of how to account for the mecha- idea of decomposition of the pressure-strain-rate term into
nisms leading to anisotropy and those responsible for the two parts, as is commonly used in turbulence models.
relaxation from anisotropic states is at present a central issue Recent hot-wire measurements of grid-generated turbu-
in the development of second-order moment closure models lence that was subjected to the mean strain field ofaxisym-
of turbulence. metric contractions and subsequently allowed to relax to-
In the context of Reynolds stress transport equations, ward isotropy in a straight duct (Hallback, Groth, and
Johansson 3 ), were focused on the determination of the dissi-
pation rate of the streamwise velocity component. Hereby,
(1) the corresponding pressure-strain-rate term could be deter-
mined from the Reynolds stress transport equations. If the
where Pij denotes the production rate term, cij the dissipa- dissipation rate components are not measured separately
tion rate term, TIij the pressure-strain-rate term, and Dij the (which can be experimentally complicated) the pressure-
transport (diffusion) terms, only the production rate term is strain-rate terms can still be estimated by the use of some
explicit in the Reynolds stresses whereas the other terms assumption about the distribution of the scalar dissipation
need to be modeled. In order to experimentally study the rate (c=!c;;) among the individual components. When the
intercomponent energy transfer due to the pressure-strain- approximation of an isotropic dissipation rate is used, noni-
rate terms, and the related effects of an anisotropic dissipa- sotropic dissipation rate effects are lumped together with
tion rate, it is essential to choose a flow situation with a high those of the intercomponent energy transfer, which can lead
degree of anisotropy albeit without many of the complexities to erroneous conclusions about modeling constants and the
of, for example, wall-bounded turbulent shear flows. In ho- validity of different types of modeling approaches. This is
mogeneous flows such as flow through a contraction or an evidenced in the literature from experimental determination
expansion, or turbulence relaxing from an initially aniso- of the Rotta constan t 4 in the "slow," or return, part (TI I~) of
tropic state (e.g., downstream of a contraction or an expan- the pressure-strain-rate term (see, e.g., Launder, Reece, and
sion), near-wall effects are absent and diffusion terms are Rodi 5 or Morris 6 ). The experimental data of the strongly
negligible. Hence they are well suited for this type of experi- strained flows in Ref. 3 (Reynolds number
ments. Today, a feasible alternative to experiments, at least ReA =4k 2/vc z-1000, where k is the turbulent kinetic ener-
at low turbulent Reynolds numbers, is the use of compari- gy) show that the small scale structure of the turbulence
sons with results of direct numerical flow simulations (see, becomes nonisotropic in the contractions, and that this ani-
e.g., Lee and Reynolds I). Some recent detailed studies of the sotropy persists far downstream in the relaxation section. It

1859 Phys. Fluids A 2 (10), October 1990 0899-8213/90/101859-08$02.00 © 1990 American Institute of Physics 1859
was also shown that the anisotropy of the dissipation rate those for k and aij ) and the scalar dissipation rate C are com-
tensor was comparable in magnitude to that of the Reynolds plemented by algebraic relations for the dissipation rate an-
stress tensor. This, in turn, shows that in experimental evalu- isotropies eij'
ations of turbulence models it is important to distinguish eij==(cijlc) -joij, (3)
between the effects of anisotropic dissipation and intercom-
ponent energy transfer. where
In most turbulence models used today, the dissipation Cij = 2v Ui.kUj,k'
rate tensor is taken to be isotropic, and only a single trans-
The latter relation is an exact definition of the dissipation
port equation for the scalar dissipation rate is treated in
rate components in homogeneous turbulence, but is approxi-
Reynolds stress closures and eddy visocity models. This sim-
mately true in other flows as well when ReA becomes large.
ple model has sometimes been replaced by a linear relation
From the transport equations for the Reynolds stress
(see, e.g., Hanjalic and Launder 7 ) between the dissipation
anisotropies,
rate and the Reynolds stress anisotropies (a ij ) :
Daij _ OJ E IIij
cij = c(joij + Eaij)' Dt - g; ij(ak/,Um,n) +k (aij - eij) + T' (4)
where
where g; ij is the production of aij' it is seen that if the history
aij == ( uiuj Ik) - jOij. (2) of the anisotropies aij were known IIij - ceij could be deter-
The coefficient E is taken to be a function of, for instance, the mined. Hence eij (and II ij ) can be written as functionals of k,
turbulent Reynolds number ReA and is supposed to tend to aij' E, the mean velocity derivatives U iJ and v (included for
zero (giving an isotropic dissipation rate) when ReA tends generality, although not explicitly present in the equations).
to infinity and to unity when ReA tends to zero. The definition of cij makes it reasonable to assume that mean
Another approach is to include the effects of anisotropic velocity gradients enter the functional relationship for eij
dissipation rate in the return pressure-strain-rate term, giv- only as invariants of U;J' Expanding the functionals in time
ing a "return-to-isotropy" tensor Tij' A model based on this and assuming that changes in the system are sufficiently
concept was proposed by Lumley and Newman,8 and was slow relative to the memory time of the turbulence, these
further investigated by Shih, Mansour, and Chen. 9 In the functionals can be reduced to functions of the present state
latter study, comparisons with data from direct numerical (Lumley and Newman 8). Thus the present aim is to find a
simulations of homogeneous shear flows and irrotationally model expressing eij as a tensorially correct function of a k/.
strained flows were made, which indicated improved perfor- From the definition of eij it is clear that the model
mance over earlier models. expression must be symmetric in the indices i andj and have
One motivation for constructing a composite model of a zero trace. The most general expression, given by invariant
the return part of the pressure-strain rate and of the aniso- theory (LumleyIO), is
tropic part of the dissipation rate is the difficulty in deter- eij =/(I1a,I1Ia,ReA,Sf,Sr,11naij
mining the individual components of the dissipation rate
tensor. However, as this is now experimentally feasible in + g(I1 a,lIl a,Re A,Sf,Sr,11n (aika kj - jIlaoij)'
some homogeneous turbulent flows, and certainly for low (5)
Reynolds number flows through full numerical simulation where
of the Navier-Stokes equations, separate modeling of the
pressure-strain-rate and the dissipation rate terms ought to
be a preferable approach since these two terms represent Sf=.J2S;;S;klc, Sr=3~SijSjkSkiklc,
physically different phenomena (e.g., as a wall is ap-
proached IIij and tij behave in quite different ways). Here- 11f = ~ - 211ij11ji k IE, Sij = (UiJ + ~,i )/2
by, there is a greater hope for improved generality of Reyn- 11ij = (UiJ - ~,i)/2;
olds stress closures. In the present study an algebraic model
for the dissipation rate tensor is proposed, which couples the I1a and IlIa are the only independent invariants of aij'
anisotropies of cij to those of the Reynolds stress tensor. Here the aim is to develop an explicit model relating the
Some comparisons between the proposed relation and re- anisotropies of the dissipation rate tensor to those of the
sults from direct numerical simulations are also presented. Reynolds stresses. A natural method of proceeding from Eq.
(5) would be to expand / and g in power series of the invar-
II. AN ALGEBRAIC NON ISOTROPIC DISSIPATION RATE iants of a ij' keeping in mind that I1a and IlIa are of second
MODEL and third order in the aij amplitUdes. A direct approach,
The approach adopted here is that of treating the effects which automatically yields the correct number of model pa-
of anisotropic dissipation rate through algebraic relations rameters, is to construct a general series expansion of eij in
and it bears some resemblance to the approach behind alge- "powers" of a k /. Such a general series expansion that satis-
braic Reynolds stress models. In the latter case the transport fies the symmetry condition eij = eji' and the zero trace con·
equations for k and E are supplemented by algebraic rela- dition ejj = 0, can be written
tions for the individual components of the stress tensor, or eij =ctaij +c2(aikakj -jlla oij)
equivalently, aij' In the present approach the modeled trans-
port equations for the Reynolds stresses (or equivalently, + C3 (aikak/alj - VIla oij)
1860 Phys. Fluids A, Vol. 2, No. 10, October 1990 Hallback, Groth, and Johansson 1860
 + C4(aikaklalmamj - jIVa 8ij) (2) ]. The zeroth-order expansion cannot satisfy the limiting
condition, and if the linear relation is to satisfy the condition
+ CS(aikaklalmamnanj - jVa 8ij) + "', (6)
(9), C I ,must equal unity. It is easily shown that truncation at
where IVa = aikaklalmami> Va = aikaklalmamnani> etc., are the second-order term also returns the linear model. Hence,
higher-order invariants of a ij' The coefficients Ci can be func- at least cubic terms are needed in order to satisfy the limiting
tions of ReA, Sr, Sr, and ar but not of the aij invariants condition (9) while still retaining adjustment possibilities of
since all dependence of aij and its invariants are explicitly the remaining model parameters.
accounted for in (6). A similar procedure has also been used Truncation of the series expansion at the third-order
to find a nonlinear model for the return part of the pressure- term, i.e., setting Ck to zero for k;;.4, and application of the
strain term. II conditions of the two-component turbulence limit, which
The so-called Cayley-Hamilton theorem [also used in eliminates two of the coefficients, yield the following expres-
the derivation of (5)] states that only the two first powers sion with only one free parameter:
and the three first invariants of a tensor in three-dimensional
space are linearly independent (Cayley I2). Here, the first
eij = [1 +a(1 I1 a -j)]a u -a(aika kj -jIla 8 u)'
(10)
invariant, the trace, is zero, which makes it possible to ex-
press all terms of order three and higher in combinations of This is the proposed algebraic dissipation model that relates
aij,aikakj,I1a, and IlIa' The use of the Cayley-Hamilton the anisotropies of the dissipation rate tensor to those of the
identity, Reynolds stress tensor. The value of a may be taken as a
function of the turbulent Reynolds number (ReA) and the
(7)
strain-rate parametersSr, Sr, and ar. However, a may not
which, if repeatedly multiplied with the tensor aij' yields depend on aij or its invariants.
relations for the fourth- and higher-order terms, gives
eij = {c I + c ! I1a + C4 j IlIa + Cs ! I1~ + .,. }aij
3

+ {C + C4! I1a + Cs j IlIa + .,. }(aika kj - ! I1a8ij)'

2 III. DETERMINATION OF A NUMERIC VALUE OF THE
(8) MODEL PARAMETER a
This expression is seen to be of the same type as (5) but here The numeric value of a can be bounded by imposing
the interrelations between higher-order terms in f and g are various constraints on the behavior of the model. One basic
explicitly accounted for. A relation of the type (5) or (8) constraint is that the degree of anisotropy of the dissipation
may be regarded as an attempt of relating the small scale rate should be less than or equal to that of the Reynolds
anisotropies (coupled to eij) to the anisotropies residing in stresses, which can be expressed as
the large scales (coupled to a ij ).
In the limit of homogeneous two-component turbulence (11 )
(in which the third velocity component has negligible ener- From Eq. (10) it can be shown that this implies that a must
gy) it follows from the definition of Eij that lie in the range from zero to two. Another constraint is that
(9) of requiring eli to be a monotonous function of ali' This can
be shown to give a lower bound of zero and an upper bound
where underscore signifies suppression of the summation of unity on a, hence
rule. This condition stems from the fact that if a velocity
component lacks energy, in homogeneous turbulence, then (12)
all its spatial derivatives must also vanish. As an example of a One possibility of determining a specific value of a is to im-
situation where (9) might occur, one may mention the case pose the requirement that the model should correctly predict
of a rapidly and strongly axisymmetrically strained flow the dissipation rate anisotropy for small times of initially
where the streamwise fluctuating velocity component tends isotropic turbulence subjected to a rapid strain. This is a
to zero. In fact the relation (9) is valid also for the wall physically relevant case, which can be regarded as a model,
normal velocity component in the inhomogeneous turbulent for instance, of turbulence entering a contraction or subject-
flow in the immediate vicinity of a wall. From (9) it is also ed to a plane strain.
evident that if the relative energy content is zero for two of Under such circumstances viscous and nonlinear effects
the components, the third must be responsible for all the are negligible for small enough times, which implies that the
energy and all of the dissipation rate. initial response of the turbulence can be described by rapid
Relation (9) can be seen as a form of "boundary" or distortion theory (RDT) (see, e.g., Ref. 13). This method of
limiting condition that must be fulfilled for any generally determining the model coefficient is similar to that of
valid model for the anisotropy measures eij' The condition Launder, Reece, and Rodi s who used the results of Crow 14
(9) can also be viewed as a realizability condition for the for a small sudden distortion to fix a parameter in a model for
dissipation rate term, which ensures that the energies remain the rapid pressure-strain term.
positive. The analysis for an arbitrary strain is given in the Ap-
If one terminates the series expansion (8) at the zeroth- pendix. The RDT analysis yields that, for small total rapid
order term, by setting C k to zero for k;;. 1, one obtains the strains, the diagonal components of the dissipation rate ani-
usual isotropic model (eij = 0), whereas termination at the sotropy tensor are exactly half of the corresponding Reyn-
first-order term gives the linear relation eij = claij [i.e., Eq. olds stress anisotropies,

1861 Phys. Fluids A. Vol. 2. No.1 O. October 1990 Hallback. Groth. and Johansson 1861
 (13)
0.35.----------------_
Note that this holds for a rapid irrotational strain as well as
for a strong homogeneous shear. If in the latter case the
coordinate system is chosen so that U I = U(x2 ), only a 12 0.00 +--------~Y_"==~------_1
and e 12 will be affected to first order in the (small) total
shear and
(14) -0.35
Hence initially the dissipation rate tensor is less anisotropic
than the Reynolds stress tensor. For small distortions and
thereby small anisotropies the model Eq. (10) can be linear- -0.70 +--~-"T'"--~-_.__---__r-~-____I
ized:
-0.70 -0.35 0.00 0.35 a II 0.70

eij = (1 - ja)aij' (15)

In order for this relation to be compatible with (13) and FIG. 2. ell vs all for turbulence subjected to axisymmetric strain. Compari-
( 14), and hence for the model equation to correctly describe son between model (10) with a = ~ (thick curve) and numerically simulat-
ed results. Data from Ref. I: contraction (0) and expansion (0)
the initial behavior of the dissipation rate anisotropies in the
[St(t=0)::::0.97resp. 0.71, Re A::::50j; Ref. 14: contraction (t.)[St
case of suddenly distorted isotropic turbulence, we find that (t = 0) ::::0.5-2.0, ReA:::: 15-100]. Isotropic dissipation rate is given by
ell =0.
a=i· (16)
Since the expressions for the anisotropy measures are linear
in the small total strains and total shears the results can be
superimposed, and we may conclude that with a = i the
IV. COMPARISONS WITH FULL NUMERICAL
model ( 10) will correctly predict the initial variation of the
SIMULATIONS
dissipation rate anisotropies for an arbitrary, not necessarily
irrotational, rapid strain. The proposed model for the anisotropy of the dissipa-
It may here be noted that for an axisymmetrically rapid- tion rate has been compared with results from three different
ly strained contracting flow one finds similar trends for the full numerical simulations of homogeneous turbulence (Lee
RDT results and the model prediction, not only for small and Reynolds, I Rogallo, 15 Schumann and Patterson I6 ). The
total strains and anisotropies, but over the whole range from first comparison is made for two axisymmetrically strained
isotropy to the two-component limit (this is not the case for flows representing flow in a contraction 1,15 and in an expan-
large rapid expansions though). sion. I The mean strain-rate parameter S! was approximate-
Figure 1 shows the relation between dissipation rate and ly equal to unity in the cases in Ref. 1 and between 0.5 and 2
Reynolds stress anisotropies predicted by the model ( 10) for in Ref. 15. The Reynolds numbers ReA were between 50 and
axisymmetric turbulence. In this case there is only one inde- 100. The model (10), with a = i, is seen in Fig, 2 to give
pendent anisotropy measure of the Reynolds stress tensor, accurate predictions for the relations between ell and all in
here chosen as all' and we have a 22 = a 33 = - !a ll . Corre- both flows over a wide range of total strains and anisotropies.
spondingly, there is only one independent anisotropy mea- Data for the relaxation phase "downstream" ofaxisym-
sure (e.g., ell) of the dissipation rate tensor. In order to give metric strains are also available in Refs. 1 and 15, whereas in
a picture of the sensitivity for the value of the model param- Ref. 16 the results are based on relaxations of undeveloped
eter, the prediction with a = 1 is also included in Fig. 1. A randomly generated axisymmetric turbulence fields. There
lower value of a will give a curve closer to the straight line is a fair agreement between the model and the various simu-
ell = a II' which is obtained by setting a = O. lation cases (Fig. 3). The data from Refs. 15 and 16 all show
similar trends rather independent of the initial conditions
such as Reynolds number and previous strain rate.
1.4,----------------------, The results in Figs. 2 and 3 substantiate the idea of ap-
proximating eij in terms of an expression in the anisotropies
of the stress tensor. It is also apparent from the results that
0.7 the proposed, rather simplistic, algebraic modeling ap-
proach has a potential for describing effects of anisotropic
dissipation rate. However, in the axisymmetric cases there is
00
only one independent anisotropy measure and an equally
accurate prediction might be expected to result from a linear
dissipation model in which E is allowed to vary in an appro-
-0.7 +'---~--__r-----__,_--~-___1
priate manner with the invariants of aij' In a case with more
-0.7 00 0.7 1.4 than one independent anisotropy measure one cannot a
priori expect a linear dissipation model, with the same value
a,
FI G. I. Model ( 10) in an axisymmetric flow. The thick curve has a = the of the coefficient E for all tensor components, to be suffi-
thin curve a = I and the dashed line a = O. Isotropic dissipation rate is cient.
given by ell =0. A more interesting test case may thus be that ofhomoge-

1862 Phys. Fluids A, Vol. 2, No. 10, October 1990 Hallback, Groth, and Johansson 1862
 ell
0.00 ,------------------~ OA
(a)
.........- .. -
,,
,-' --- --- ---- ...
0.3 ,,
,
,, ---
,,,
,
,,
I
0 0
,, ,
-0.35 0,2 0
0
, , 0 0
0
0,1 0
"
-0.70 +----~---__r----~---_l 0,0
20
-0.70 -0.35 0.00 0 10 t aU/ay
en
FIG. 3. e" vs a" for axisymmetric turbulence relaxing toward isotropy. 0,10
(b)
Comparison between model ( 10) with a = 3(thick curve) and numerically
simulated results. Data from Ref. I: (0) (ReA :::::45); Ref. 14: (0)
(ReA :::::50-70); Ref. 15: (6) (ReA :::::85-840). Symbols are linked together 0,05
by straight lines for each relaxation case. 0 0 0 0
0 0
0.00 ~---_------""-_=----------­
", ' ""', --
" ......
neous turbulence subjected to a plane strain. We here have
-0.05 ... _--------- ...... _-
two independent diagonal components of the aij tensor. Pre-
dictions for the dissipation rate anisotropies ell and e33 are -0.1 0 +----~---r__-------:-----I
compared in Fig. 4 with results from the simulation data o 10 t 20 aU/ay
from Ref. 1 in which all :::::0, i.e., a33 ::::: - a22 • A rather good
agreement is again seen to be achieved with a model coeffi-
cient value of i. Data from Ref. 15 with moderate strain rates 0.0 . , . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,
(e)
(S f::::: 1 resp. 2) agree well with the data in Fig. 4 and thus
also with the model. The simulation data indicate that for
-0.1
very high strain rates (S f > 4) the dissipation rate anisotro-
pies depend more strongly on Sf. If a is taken as a constant • • • • • •
( as done here), the accuracy of the model predictions would -0.2 • •
be reduced under such circumstances. Also included in Fig.
4 are predictions for the model (10) with a = 0 (or equiv- -0,3 ...........
.. _-------- -------------
alentlyeij = aij) and for the isotropic dissipation model (i.e.,
e ij = 0). One should note that in this case no linear model
-OA~---~-----r----~-----I
o 10 t aulay 20

FIG. 5. Comparisons between model (10) predictions with a = ~ (solid

0.35,------------------, curves) and numerically simulated results from Ref. 14 for homogeneous
turbulent shear flow [St(t=O) =n~(t=O):::::1.7, Re A:::::300-2500].
(a) ell' (b) e", and (c) e '2 versus total shear (t au lay). Dashed curves
o represent the corresponding Reynolds stress anisotropy (or a model
0.00 ~_===~_-='z..:.===_ ___,~'=-_:_:_:::...:------I eij =alj).
----------- -
• .IIiiii:!!!
...
-----___ 0
-0.35 ....... 0 .................. ...
•
•
'D ............ '"'g

eij= Eaij' regardless of how E is prescribed to vary with the

-0,70 +----~------r---------__I invariants, etc., is capable of predicting the dissipation rate
0.00 0.35 0.70
anisotropies. This is obvious from the fact that all is nearly
equal to zero while ell increases with a22 . However, in the
proposed model all components of the tensor a kl enter in the
FIG. 4. ell (0) and e" (0) vsa 22 for turbulence subjected toa plane strain. expressions for the components of eij through the nonlinear
Comparison between model (10) with a = ~ (solid curves) and numerical-
ly simulated results from Ref. 1 [ST (t = 0)::::: 1, ReA :::::50]. Dashed
terma(!U a aij -aika kj +~Ua Dij)' Herebyeacheij is affect-
curves, with small symbols, represent the corresponding Reynolds stress ed by the complete anisotropic state of the flow.
anisotropy (or a model eij = aij)' Isotropic dissipation rate is given by Another basic flow situation is that of turbulence sub-
ell = e33 =O. jected to homogeneous shear. This can be seen as a generic

1863 Phys. Fluids A, Vol. 2, No.1 0, October 1990 Hallbl1ck, Groth, and Johansson 1863
case for turbulent flows such as boundary layer and channel about 3 and the turbulent Reynolds number, ReA' about
flow. In all these cases, which have a two-dimensional mean 2500. A rather good agreement was found between the SMC
flow, there are three independent components of eij' In Fig. 5 model prediction and the experimental data. A very close
ell' e33 , and e l2 are shown as functions of the total strain. 15 agreement was found for the present model if the Rotta con-
The 3,3- component is largely determined by the nonlinear stant was allowed to attain a value of CI = 1.7 (and a = a).
term since a 33 is nearly zero. For the other components the This value should be compared with C I = 2.3, representing
linear part (etnear = 0.5aij) dominates since the Reynolds the best choice of C I under the assumption of isotropic dissi-
stress anisotropies are of moderate amplitude. pation.
The above comparisons with data from full numerical Direct comparison between ( 17) and ( 18) shows that C I
simulations of three homogeneous flow situations (axisym- and a correspond to! CfFs and - y/4, respectively. With
metric flow, plane strain, and shear) indicate that the model, the functions for CfFs and yin Ref. 9, !Cf F5 will vary from
with a parameter value obtained from small rapid strain con- about 2.1 to 0.85 and - y/4 will be about 0.01 for the experi-
siderations, gives relatively good predictions even in cases mental case described above. The value of 0.01 seems to be
with low and moderate strain rates. For large total strains at very low as compared with the a used here, and it means that
high strain rates the prediction capability of the model ap- the higher-order terms in the second part of (17) have a
pears to be weakened. However, a correct behavior of the negligible influence. The value of - y/4 depends on the de-
model for a component of vanishing energy (e.g., e33 in plane gree of anisotropy of aij and can never exceed 0.5 (the value
strain or e22 in shear) is always ensured by the limiting con- reached in the two-component limit). If, in an axisymmetric
dition (9) for two-component turbulence. case, - y/4 is to be larger than, say, 0.1, then all must be
smaller than - 0.65, i.e., very close to the two-component
v. COMPARISON WITH COMPOSITE "RETURN-TO- limit, or greater than 1.25. Also, in all the irrotationally
ISOTROPY" MODELS strained cases of Ref. 1 the value never exceeds 0.05. Thus
Eq. (17) is essentially of the form Tij = Caij except in highly
The present model represents an attempt to explicitly anisotropic situations, e.g., in the immediate vicinity of a
account for effects of anisotropic dissipation rates. The suc- wall. '
cess of this approach depends to some extent on the feasibil- The above results should not in themselves be taken as
ity of obtaining reliable data for the dissipation rate compo- an indication of the sufficiency of linear pressure-strain
nents. Such data, although increasing in amount, are still models. However, it possibly points to the advantage of sepa-
rather scarce. In the Reynolds stress transport equations £e'i rate modeling of anisotropic dissipation and pressure-strain
plays a role similar to that of the so-called slow part of the rate for the construction of Reynolds stress models with as
pressure-strain-rate term (TIp. Composite models for the large a generality as possible.
energy redistribution terms lump these two effects together.
In the present notation the composite model used in Shih,
Mansour, and Chen9 (SMC) reads

= - E(!Cf F5 + I )aij - E( y/4) [ q- !IIa )aij VI. SUMMARY

+aikakj-jIIaoij], (17) A nonlinear algebraic model for the dissipation rate ten-
sor has been derived, and tested against numerical simula-
where Cffs and yare given functions of Reynolds number tion data. The set of algebraic relations for the anisotropy of
and the anisotropy tensor invariants. If this "return-to-iso- the dissipation rate tensor should be regarded as a supple-
tropy" model is to be compared with the present eij -model, ment to the transport equations for the individual Reynolds
Eq. (10) must be complemented with a model for TI~. Be- stress components (or k and aij) and the scalar dissipation
cause of the lack of detailed investigations of nonlinear ex- rate, in the context of Reynolds stress transport models. A
plicit models for TI~, we choose here the commonly used major advantage with the present approach is that the effects
linear Rotta4 model and obtain of anisotropic dissipation rate can be isolated and the model-
ing of these tested separately against experiments, physical
or numerical. Another advantage is that knowledge of the
- E(C I + l)aij + Ea [(j - !IIa )aij anisotropy of the dissipation rate tensor could be used for
+ aika kj - jIIa oij]' (18) improved modeling of the production term in the scalar dis-
sipation rate transport equation.
where C I is the Rotta constant. This should not be regarded
as a proposed model for the energy redistribution tensor T ij'
but it allows interesting comparisons with the SMC model
(despite the apparent inconsistency of using a linear model
for TI~ together with a higher-order one for eij)'
The two models (17) and (18) were tested against the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
experimental data of Ref. 17 on relaxation of strongly aniso- The authors are grateful for the constructive critique of
tropic homogeneous turbulence downstream of a contrac- the referees. Support from the Swedish State Board for Tech-
tion. The strain-rate parameter S ~ in the experiment was nical Development is gratefully acknowledged.

1864 Phys. Fluids A, Vol. 2, No.1 0, October 1990 Hallback, Groth, and Johansson 1864
APPENDIX: RDT ANALYSIS OF THE RESPONSE OF
INITIALLY ISOTROPIC TURBULENCE SUBJECTED TO
A SUDDEN SMALL RAPID ARBITRARY DISTORTION
iI
~
3

1
E(k) (
<1>;;-;:::'--2 1-
21Tk iI3 ~ 1
8i +-2
k
1
iI3
~ 1
2)
k;8; , (A8)

Rapid distortion theory can be used to predict the be-

havior of turbulence subjected to a suddenly applied rapid
irrotational strain rate. Here we derive an expression for the
relation between the Reynolds stress and dissipation rate an- - 2(k 2 + k;) jtl k J8j ). (A9)
isotropies under such circumstances. The quantities needed
are thus uiuj and Ui,nUj,n as functions of the strain tensor,
The presentation closely follows that of Ref. 13, pp. 68-73.
We begin by introducing an energy spectrum tensor
JI 1]2<1>;; -;:::, ~;~; (k 2 - k2 itt i-itt i).
8 k ;8
(AlO)
<l>ij (k) (k is the wave-number vector) for the homogeneous
turbulence defined by The continuity condition implies that ~J~ 1 8j = 0, i.e.,
d1], d1]2 d1]3 can be replaced by dk , dk2 dk 3.
The expressions (A7)-(AlO) are introduced into the
integrals (A2) and (A3), which then are solved by use of
spherical coordinates: k 1 = k cos 0, k2 = k sin 0 cos ({!,
k3 = k sin 0 sin ({!. After some algebra we obtain the follow-
From this definitioin it is readily shown that (a prime is used ing for the initial response of isotropic turbulence subjected
to denote the initial state of the turbulence), to a sudden rapid distortion (no summation over repeated

uiu/= III <l>ij(k)dk,

(A2)
indices):

-UiU i (23 158 8 )L'" E(k)dk,

= - - -

III
i
0
2
Ui,nUj,: = k <1>ij(k)dk.
2 - -48 ) 2v LOO k 2E(k)dk,
£ .. =
(-
3 15 0
Hence the dissipation rate components can be written as II I

or
(A3)

At a later instant when the flow has been distorted we have i.e., for small total strains we have the following relation

UiUj = III <I>,,(1)d1),

(A4)
between the dissipation rate and Reynolds stress anisotro-
pies:

£ij = 2v III 1]2<1>ij (1)d1),

For small distortions and thereby small anisotropies the al-
where in the rapid distortion limit it is possible to express 1) gebraic dissipation rate anisotropy model [Eq. (10)], iflin-
and <I> ij as functions of k, <I> ij (k), and the strain tensor. If a earized, reads
small arbitrary irrotational strain is imposed on the fluid the eij = (1 - ja)aij'
strain tensor will be diagonal with the components equal to Hence the proposed model correctly describes the relation
1 + 8 i (i = 1,2,3). Here 8 i can be interpreted as the relative between large and small scale anisotropies (between aij and
extension of a fluid element in the ith direction, i.e., eij) for the case of small rapid distortions provided that
8 i = b.IJlo where Ii is the length of the undistorted fluid
element. The small distortion is taken to be the result of a a=i·
large strain rate acting during a short time, which motivates A similar analysis can also be carried out for a homogeneous
the applicability of RDT. In initially isotropic turbulence shear flow using the theory of weak turbulence (see, e.g.,
<l>ij(k) = E(k) (k 28ij - kik)/(41Tk4) leading to the fol- Ref. 18, pp. 71-85). If the coordinate system is chosen so
lowing expressions, valid to first order in the 8;'s, for 1) and that U I = U(x 2 ), and a l2 and e 12 will be affected to first
<1>" (no implicit summation over repeated indices): order in the total shear u=.t au /ax 2 :

k1 k2 k3) (A5 ) a 12 = - Au, e l2 = - ?su.

1) = ( 1+ 8 ' 1+ 8 ' 1+ 8 '
1 2 3 We see that this is consistent with the above value oq for the
3
model parameter a.
1]2-;:::,k 2 - 2 I kJ8j , (A6)
j~ 1

<I>~E(k) (k2(k2_k2) _2(k 4 _3k 2k 2)8.

~ 41Tk 6
II I I I

'M. J. Lee and W. C. Reynolds, Thermosciences Division Report No. TF-

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1865 Phys. Fluids A, Vol. 2, No.1 0, October 1990 Hallback, Groth, and Johansson 1865
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1866 Phys. Fluids A, Vol. 2, No.1 0, October 1990 Hallback, Groth, and Johansson 1866