Shear effects in nonhomogeneous turbulence

Abstract

Motivated by recent experimental and numerical results, a simple unifying picture of intermittency in turbulent shear flows is suggested. Integral structure functions (ISF), taking into account explicitly the shear intensity, are introduced on phenomenological grounds. ISF can exhibit a universal scaling behavior, independent of the shear intensity. This picture is in satisfactory agreement with both experimental and numerical data. Possible extension to convective turbulence and implication on closure conditions for large-eddy simulation of nonhomogeneous flows are briefly discussed.