Large-Scale Vortical Structures in The Developing Plane Mixing Layer Using LES

Study of turbulent mixing layers has been a popular subject from the point of view of both practical application and phenomenological importance in engineering field. Turbulent mixing layers can be applied in many fields where rapid transition to turbulence is desirable in order to prevent boundary layer separation or to enhance mixing. The ability to control mixing, structure and growth of the shear flow would obviously have a considerable impact on many engineering applications. In addition to practical applications, free shear flows are one of the simplest flows to understand the fundamental mechanism in the transition process to turbulence. After the discovery of large-scale vortical structure in free shear flows many researchers have investigated the physical mechanism of generation and dissipation processes of the vortical structure. This study investigated the role of the large-scale vortical structures in the turbulent mixing layer using LES(Large-Eddy Simulation). The result shows that the pairing interaction of the vortical structure plays an important role in the growth rate of a mixing layer. It is found that the turbulence quantities depend strongly on the velocity ratio. It is also found that the vorticity in the high-velocity-side can extract energy from the mean flow, while the vorticity in the low-velocity-side lose energy by the viscous dissipation. Finally the results suggest the guideline to obtain the desired flow by control of the velocity ratio.