Comment on "Is Intermittent Motion of Outer Flow in the Turbulent Boundary Layer Deterministic Chaos?"

Charles Meneveau
Department of Mechanical Engineering
The Johns Hopkins University | Baltimore MD 21218

ABSTRACT: Recently Tsuji et al. [Phys. Fluids A 3 1941 (1991)] presented measurements of the probability density of sizes of laminar regions in the upper portion of a turbulent boundary layer. This size distribution was shown to have a power-law decay exponent close to 4/3. In this comment it is shown that such a result is consistent with the idea that the turbulent non-turbulent interface is a fractal surface of dimension D=7/3. This is consistent with other experimental evidence, as well as with the Kolmogorov scaling of turbulent velocity fluctuations. It is also shown that the observed scaling of the size distribution could be explained in terms of power-law spirals.

Phys. Fluids A 4, pp. 1587-1588

DOI: 10.1063/1.858432 | Full PDF
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