2006/09/01 by Jérémie Bec, Luca Biferale, Guido Boffetta +5 · 6 citations
Engineering · #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Granular flow and fluidized beds #Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.2349587
openalex publication_date 2006/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Lyapunov exponents of heavy particles and tracers advected by homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flows are investigated by means of direct numerical simulations. For large values of the Stokes number, the main effect of inertia is to reduce the chaoticity with respect to fluid tracers. Conversely, for small inertia, a counterintuitive increase of the first Lyapunov exponent is observed. The flow intermittency is found to induce a Reynolds number dependency for the statistics of the finite-time Lyapunov exponents of tracers. Such intermittency effects are found to persist at increasing inertia.