English

Vortex Ring Reconnections

Fluid Dynamics 2009-09-29 v1

Abstract

We investigate numerically the Navier-Stokes dynamics of reconnecting vortex rings at small ReRe number. We find that reconnections are dissipative due to the smoothing of vorticity gradients at reconnection kinks and to the formation of secondary structures of stretched anti-parallel vorticity which transfer kinetic energy to small scales where it is subsequently dissipated efficiently. In addition, the relaxation of the reconnection kinks excites Kelvin waves which due to strong damping are of low wavenumber and affect directly only large scale properties of the flow.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0209014,
  title  = {Vortex Ring Reconnections},
  author = {Philippe Chatelain and Demosthenes Kivotides and Anthony Leonard},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0209014},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 9 figures (3 with 8 sub-figures)