Related papers: Alignment statistics of rods with the Lagrangian s…
Stretching in continuum mechanics is naturally described using the Cauchy-Green strain tensors. These tensors quantify the Lagrangian stretching experienced by a material element, and provide a powerful way to study processes in turbulent…
Non-spherical particles transported by an anisotropic turbulent flow preferentially align with the mean shear and intermittently tumble when the local strain fluctuates. Such an intricate behaviour is here studied for inertialess,…
Geophysical flows are often turbulent and subject to rotation. This rotation modifies the structure of turbulence and is thereby expected to sensibly affect its Lagrangian properties. Here, we investigate the relative dispersion and…
Numerical simulations show that microscopic rod-like bodies suspended in a turbulent flow tend to align with the vorticity vector, rather than with the dominant eignevector of the strain-rate tensor. This paper investigates an analytically…
We present high-resolution direct numerical simulations of turbulent three-dimensional Rayleigh-Benard convection with a focus on the Lagrangian properties of the flow. The volume is a Cartesian slab with an aspect ratio of four bounded by…
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 Lagrangian dynamics of semi-flexible macromolecules in laminar as well as in homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flows by means of analytically solvable stochastic models and direct numerical simulations. The statistics of the…
We report on an experimental investigation of the tumbling of microrods in the shear flow of a microchannel (40 x 2.5 x 0.4 mm). The rods are 20 to 30 microns long and their diameters are of the order of 1 micron. Images of the…
We study the dynamics of gyrotactic microswimmers suspended in homogeneous and isotropic turbulence by using direct numerical simulations (DNS). The swimmers are characterized by three non-dimensional parameters: their aspect ratio…
We study the relation between flow structure and fluid deformation in steady two-dimensional random flows. Beyond the linear (shear flow) and exponential (chaotic flow) elongation paradigms, we find a broad spectrum of stretching behaviors,…
Lagrangian stochastic models are widely used to predict and analyze turbulent dispersion in complex environments, such as in various terrestrial and marine canopy flows. However, due to a lack of empirical data, it is still not understood…
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…
Local regions of anomalous particle dispersion, and intermittent events that occur in turbulent flows can greatly influence the global statistical description of the flow. These local behaviors can be identified and analyzed by comparing…
The orientational dynamics of inertialess anisotropic particles transported by two-dimensional convective turbulent flows display a coexistence of regular and chaotic features. We numerically demonstrate that very elongated particles (rods)…
We present simultaneous experimental measurements of the dynamics of anisotropic particles transported by a turbulent flow and the velocity gradient tensor of the flow surrounding them. We track both rod-shaped particles and small spherical…
Lagrangian acceleration statistics in a fully developed turbulent channel flow at $Re_\tau = 1440$ are investigated, based on tracer particle tracking in experiments and direct numerical simulations. The evolution with wall distance of the…
The spreading of liquid drops on surfaces corrugated with micron-scale parallel grooves is studied both experimentally and numerically. Because of the surface patterning, the typical final drop shape is no longer spherical. The elongation…
The viscous drag on a slender rod by a wall is important to many biological and industrial systems. This drag critically depends on the separation between the rod and the wall and can be approximated asymptotically in specific regimes,…
The statistics of Lagrangian pair dispersion in a homogeneous isotropic flow is investigated by means of direct numerical simulations. The focus is on deviations from Richardson eddy-diffusivity model and in particular on the strong…
We study the dynamics of neutral and charged rods embedded in varying-section channels. By means of systematic approximations, we derive the dependence of the local diffusion coefficient on both the geometry and charge of the rods. This…