THE EFFECT OF ROTATION ON A RAPIDLY SHEARED HOMOGENEOUS TURBULENT FLOW WITH A PASSIVE SCALAR

The effect of rotation on the time development of a homogeneous turbulent shear flow is studied by means of a series of direct numerical simulations. At the same time the influence of the rotation on the transport of a passive scalar in the turbulent shear flow is investigated. The shear rate used in this study is relatively high. The reason for this is that we want to approximate the situation in a turbulent boundary layer close to the wall. Because of the high shear rates the results of the numerical simulations can be compared with viscous rapid distortion theory based on the linearized equations of the flow and scalar fields. It is shown that rotation has a strong influence on the time development of the turbulent kinetic energy and anisotropy of the flow as well as on the direction of the turbulent scalar flux and on the scalar-velocity fluctuation correlation. Viscous rapid distortion theory predictions of the flow and scalar field agree in general well with the numerical simulations.