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Scale invariance of intermittency in LES turbulence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2025

Bruno Magacho Open the ORCID record for Bruno Magacho [Opens in a new window] ,
Simon Thalabard ,
Michele Buzzicotti ,
Fabio Bonaccorso ,
Luca Biferale Open the ORCID record for Luca Biferale [Opens in a new window]  and
Alexei A. Mailybaev Open the ORCID record for Alexei A. Mailybaev [Opens in a new window]
Bruno Magacho*
Affiliation:
Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada – IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Simon Thalabard
Affiliation:
Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Institut de Physique de Nice, Nice 06200, France
Michele Buzzicotti
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and INFN, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy
Fabio Bonaccorso
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and INFN, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy
Luca Biferale
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and INFN, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy
Alexei A. Mailybaev
Affiliation:
Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada – IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
*
Corresponding author: Bruno Magacho, bruno.magacho@impa.br
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Abstract

Turbulent flows exhibit large intermittent fluctuations from inertial to dissipative scales, characterised by multifractal statistics and breaking the statistical self-similarity. It has recently been proposed that the Navier–Stokes turbulence restores a hidden form of scale invariance in the inertial interval when formulated for a dynamically (nonlinearly) rescaled quasi-Lagrangian velocity field. Here we show that such hidden self-similarity extends to the large-eddy-simulation (LES) approach in computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In particular, we show that classical subgrid-scale models, such as implicit or explicit Smagorinsky closures, respect the hidden scale invariance at all scales – both resolved and subgrid. In the inertial range, they reproduce the hidden scale invariance of Navier–Stokes statistics. These properties are verified very accurately by numerical simulations and, beyond CFD, turn LES into a valuable tool for fundamental turbulence research.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Homogeneous turbulence Turbulent Flows: Intermittency Turbulent Flows: Isotropic turbulence

Information

Type
JFM Rapids
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 1016 , 10 August 2025 , R5
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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