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Turbulent Channel Structures
Melissa Green
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Turbulence is chaotic by definition, but previous work has shown that turbulent flow is organized into coherent structures. We use a method called Direct Lyapunov Exponent to identify these structures in a turbulent channel flow. The top image is a plane seen by looking down the channel, and the bottom image is a plane seen from looking from the side of the channel. Structures are outlined in black, and are more dominant near the walls, as expected.