Related papers: Preferential sampling of helicity by isotropic hel…
We present numerical and theoretical results concerning the properties of turbulent flows with strong multi-scale helical injection. We perform direct numerical simulations of the Navier-Stokes equations under a random helical stirring with…
The rotational dynamics of anisotropic particles advected in a turbulent fluid flow are important in many industrial and natural setting. Particle rotations are controlled by small scale properties of turbulence that are nearly universal,…
We investigate the dynamics of very large particles freely advected in a turbulent von Karman flow. Contrary to other experiments for which the particle dynamics is generally studied near the geometrical center of the flow, we track the…
Helicity, a measure of the breakage of reflectional symmetry representing the topology of turbulent flows, contributes in a crucial way to their dynamics and to their fundamental statistical properties. We review several of their main…
Non-spherical particles transported by turbulent flow have a rich dynamics that combines their translational and rotational motions. Here, the focus is on small, heavy, inertial particles with a spheroidal shape fully prescribed by their…
We study the statistical properties of orientation and rotation dynamics of elliptical tracer particles in two-dimensional, homogeneous and isotropic turbulence by direct numerical simulations. We consider both the cases in which the…
We study the translational and rotational dynamics of neutrally-buoyant finite-size spheroids in hydrodynamic turbulence by means of fully resolved numerical simulations. We examine axisymmetric shapes, from oblate to prolate, and the…
We study the motion of a single helical vortex in an unbounded, inviscid, incompressible fluid. The vortex is an infinite tube whose centerline is a helix and whose cross section is a circle of small radius (compared to the radius of…
We investigate the transport dynamics of elongated particles in cellular vortical flows that undergo spatial oscillations over time. Experimental flow visualizations reveal mixed flow fields with chaotic and elliptic regions coexisting.…
We present a sweep-stick mechanism for heavy particles transported by a turbulent flow under the action of gravity. Direct numerical simulations show that these particles preferentially explore regions of the flow with close to zero…
We investigate the dynamics of spheroids immersed in the journal bearing flow subject to a contractible non-reciprocal loop. We show how geometric phases appear not only in the position, but also in the orientation of such particles. We…
Turbulent fluid flows exhibit a complex small-scale structure with frequently occurring extreme velocity gradients. Particles probing such swirling and straining regions respond with an intricate shape-dependent orientational dynamics,…
Invariance properties of a physical system govern its behavior: energy conservation in turbulence drives a wide distribution of energy among modes, as observed in geophysics, astrophysics and engineering. In hydrodynamic turbulence, the…
We investigate the sedimentation of chiral particles in viscous fluid flow. We identify helical ribbons as simple particles with strong translation-rotation coupling whose symmetry ensures that the centers of mass, buoyancy, resistance, and…
The inertia of particles driven by the turbulent flow of the surrounding fluid makes them prefer certain regions of the flow. The heavy particles lag behind the flow and tend to accumulate in the regions with less vorticity, while the light…
Particles in the shape of chiral dipoles show a preferential rotation in three dimensional homogeneous isotropic turbulence. A chiral dipole consists of a rod with two helices of opposite handedness, one at each end. We can use 3d printing…
The dynamics of non-spherical rigid particles immersed in an axisymmetric random flow is studied analytically. The motion of the particles is described by Jeffery's equation; the random flow is Gaussian and has short correlation time.The…
We study the rotational dynamics of {\it inertial} disks and rods in three-dimensional, homogeneous isotropic turbulence. In particular, we show how the alignment and the decorrelation time-scales of such spheroids depend, critically, on…
Experimental and numerical study of the steady-state cyclonic vortex from isolated heat source in a rotating fluid layer is described. The structure of laboratory cyclonic vortex is similar to the typical structure of tropical cyclones from…
The motion of particles suspended in environmental turbulence is relevant to many scientific fields, from sediment transport to biological interactions to underwater robotics. At very small scales and simple shapes, we are able to…