Miegunyah Lecture: Turbulent flow: From forest fires to submarines
Public Lecture
Thursday 7 August 2008 @ 06:30 pm - 07:30 pmHarold Woodruff Theatre, Microbiology Building (bldg 184), Parkville
Turbulence is intrinsic to fluid flow on every scale, from blood flow in the body to winds in the atmosphere. Stirring a coffee cup, filling a sink, driving a car, the flames in a fireplace or snowflakes in a storm, even breathing itself, are all circumstances where turbulent flows are important. Turbulent flows are characterized by eddying motions that cover a wide range of scales, from large eddies the size of the flow itself, to very small eddies that can be sub-microscopic. Each eddy scale plays a particular role in the mixing and energy dissipation due to turbulence, and although the basic equations needed to calculate a turbulent flow - the Navier-Stokes equations - have been known for more than 150 years, today's supercomputers are not powerful enough to simulate precisely all the eddies and their interactions (at least in all practical flows). When it comes to theory, turbulence has been called "the last great outstanding problem of classical physics." At present, all we have are some general concepts that may prove to be incorrect or incomplete. In this lecture, I will describe the features of turbulent flows that lead to its complexity, give some important examples, demonstrate the practical impact of our uncertain knowledge of turbulence, and describe why current research efforts may lead to success.
Turbulence has been described as the "most common, most important, and also most complicated kind of fluid motion." (Bradshaw, P.B. "An introduction to turbulence and its measurement," Pergamon Press 1972.
Enquiries:
Professor Ivan Marusic
+61 3 8344 6827
imarusic@ unimelb.edu.au
http://www.mame.mu.oz.au/people/staff/ivan_marusic.html