Oc674/ME569  Introduction to Turbulence

It is a fact of nature that the great majority of fluid flows are turbulent - laminar flows are the exception. The enhancement of the transports of mass and momentum due to turbulent mixing are critical to most fluid flows. The mixing of chemical constituents aids combustion processes, for example.

Almost everyone studying fluid flows must acknowledge this in some way. Some of us try to discern the nature of the instabilities that lead to turbulence while others must parameterize their effects on larger scale flows. Controlling turbulence (whether reducing it to improve pipe flows, or increasing it to retard flow separation on an aircraft wing) is an important engineering problem.

The material in this course is suggested to students studying the flows of fluids in high Reynolds number environments.

This course will be jointly taught by Professor Jim Moum from COAS and Professor Jim Liburdy from Mechanical Engineering. It is cross-listed as Oc674 in Oceanography and ME569 in Mechanical Engineering.