Scalar dissipation rate derivation

The material covered in the appendices is provided as a supplement for readers interested in more detail than could be provided in the main text. Appendix A discusses the derivation of the spectral relaxation (SR) model starting from the scalar spectral transport equation. The SR model is introduced in Chapter 4 as a non-equilibrium model for the scalar dissipation rate. The material in Appendix A is an attempt to connect the model to a more fundamental description based on two-point spectral transport. This connection can be exploited to extract model parameters from direct-numerical simulation data of homogeneous turbulent scalar mixing (Fox and Yeung 1999). 

As discussed in Section 2.1, in high-Reynolds-number turbulent flows the scalar dissipation rate is equal to the rate of energy transfer through the inertial range of the turbulence energy spectrum. The usual modeling approach is thus to use a transport equation for the transfer rate instead of the detailed balance equation for the dissipation rate derived from (1.27). Nevertheless, in order to understand better the small-scale physical phenomena that determine e, we will derive its transport equation starting from (2.99). 

In developing closures for the chemical source term and the PDF transport equation, we will also come across conditional moments of the derivatives of a field conditioned on the value of the field. For example, in conditional-moment closures, we must provide a functional form for the scalar dissipation rate conditioned on the mixture fraction, i.e.,... 

Following the approach used to derive (2.75), p. 43, the scalar spectral transport equation can also be used to generate a spectral model for the scalar dissipation rate for the case 1 < Sc.24 Multiplying (3.73) by 2T/< 2 yields the spectral transport equation for D Ik, t) ... 

A spectral model similar to (3.82) can be derived from (3.75) for the joint scalar dissipation rate eap defined by (3.139), p. 90. We will use these models in Section 3.4 to understand the importance of spectral transport in determining differential-diffusion effects. As we shall see in the next section, the spectral interpretation of scalar energy transport has important ramifications on the transport equations for one-point scalar statistics for inhomogeneous turbulent mixing. 

The transport equation for the scalar dissipation rate of an inert scalar can be derived starting from (3.90). We begin by defining the fluctuating scalar gradient as... 

The first factor occurs even in homogeneous flows with two inert scalars, and is discussed in Section 3.4. The second factor is present in nearly all turbulent reacting flows with moderately fast chemistry. As discussed in Chapter 4, modeling the joint scalar dissipation rate is challenging due to the need to include all important physical processes. One starting point is its transport equation, which we derive below. 

As done below for two examples, expressions can also be derived for the scalar variance starting from the model equations. For the homogeneous flow under consideration, micromixing controls the variance decay rate, and thus y can be chosen to agree with a particular model for the scalar dissipation rate. For inhomogeneous flows, the definitions of G and M(n) must be modified to avoid spurious dissipation (Fox 1998). We will discuss the extension of the model to inhomogeneous flows after looking at two simple examples. 

A transported PDF extension of the Hamelet model can be derived in a similar manner using the Lagrangian spectral relaxation model (Fox 1999) for the joint scalar dissipation rate. 

In the absence of mean scalar gradients, the scalar covariances and joint dissipation rates will decay towards zero. For this case, it is convenient to work with the governing equations for g p and p p directly. These expressions can be derived from (3.179) and (3.180) ... 

In scalar mixing studies and for infinite-rate reacting flows controlled by mixing, the variance of inert scalars is of interest since it is a measure of the local instantaneous departure of concentration from its local instantaneous mean value. For non-reactive flows the variance can be interpreted as a departure from locally perfect mixing. In this case the dissipation of concentration variance can be interpreted as mixing on the molecular scale. The scalar variance equation (1.462) can be derived from the scalar transport equation... 

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