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Turbulent flows are intrinsic to many processes in science and engineering, and efforts to elucidate the physics of turbulence are of critical importance to many fields. However, ongoing efforts to achieve a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of turbulent flow are hindered by the difficulty of quantifying the complex, non-linear interactions between individual eddies in these flows. The difficulty of this task is compounded by the lack of robust methods for accurately identifying individual eddy structures and characterizing their dynamic evolution and organization across multiple scales. In this paper we address this problem by proposing several novel approaches for more accurately segmenting individual eddy structures in turbulent flows.


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Methods to Identify Individual Eddy Structures in Turbulent Flow

Show Author's information Shengwen Wang( )Jack GoldfeatherEllen K. LongmireVictoria Interrante
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
Mathematics and Computer Science Department, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, MN 55057, USA
Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA

Abstract

Turbulent flows are intrinsic to many processes in science and engineering, and efforts to elucidate the physics of turbulence are of critical importance to many fields. However, ongoing efforts to achieve a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of turbulent flow are hindered by the difficulty of quantifying the complex, non-linear interactions between individual eddies in these flows. The difficulty of this task is compounded by the lack of robust methods for accurately identifying individual eddy structures and characterizing their dynamic evolution and organization across multiple scales. In this paper we address this problem by proposing several novel approaches for more accurately segmenting individual eddy structures in turbulent flows.

Keywords: segmentation, flow visualization, vortices, turbulent flow

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Publication history

Received: 21 February 2013
Accepted: 10 March 2013
Published: 30 April 2013
Issue date: April 2013

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© The author(s) 2013

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the US National Science Foundation (No. CBET-0324898).

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