From Internal Waves to Turbulence in a Stably Stratified Fluid.

We report on the statistical analysis of stratified turbulence forced by large-scale waves. The setup mimics some features of the tidal forcing of turbulence in the ocean interior at submesoscales. Our experiments are performed in the large-scale Coriolis facility in Grenoble which is 13 m in diameter and 1 m deep. Four wave makers excite large-scale waves of moderate amplitude. In addition to weak internal wave turbulence at large scales, we observe strongly nonlinear waves, the breaking of which triggers intermittently strong turbulence at small scales. A transition to strongly nonlinear turbulence is observed at smaller scales. Our measurements are reminiscent of oceanic observations. Despite similarities with the empirical Garrett and Munk spectrum that assumes weak wave turbulence, our observed energy spectra are rather to be attributed to strongly nonlinear internal waves.

Experimental Evidence of a Hydrodynamic Soliton Gas.

We report on an experimental realization of a bidirectional soliton gas in a 34-m-long wave flume in a shallow water regime. We take advantage of the fission of a sinusoidal wave to continuously inject solitons that propagate along the tank, back and forth. Despite the unavoidable damping, solitons retain their profile adiabatically, while decaying. The outcome is the formation of a stationary state characterized by a dense soliton gas whose statistical properties are well described by a pure integrable dynamics. The basic ingredient in the gas, i.e., the two-soliton interaction, is studied in detail and compared favorably with the analytical solutions of the Kaup-Boussinesq integrable equation. High resolution space-time measurements of the surface elevation in the wave flume provide a unique tool for studying experimentally the whole spectrum of excitations.

Elastic weak turbulence: From the vibrating plate to the drum.

Weak wave turbulence has been observed on a thin elastic plates since the work by Düring et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 025503 (2006)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.97.025503]. Here we report theoretical, experimental, and numerical studies of wave turbulence in a forced thin elastic plate submitted to increasing tension. When increasing the tension (or decreasing the bending stiffness of the plate) the plate evolves progressively from a plate into an elastic membrane as in drums. We first consider a thin plate and increase the tension in experiments and numerical simulations. We observe that the system remains in a state of weak turbulence of weakly dispersive waves. This observation is in contrast with what has been observed in water waves when decreasing the water depth, which also changes the waves from dispersive to weakly dispersive. The weak turbulence observed in the deep water case evolves into a solitonic regime. Here no such transition is observed for the stretched plate. We then apply the weak turbulence theory to the membrane case and show with numerical simulations that indeed the weak turbulence framework remains valid for the membrane and no formation of singular structures (shocks) should be expected in contrast with acoustic wave turbulence.

Intermittency and emergence of coherent structures in wave turbulence of a vibrating plate.

We report numerical investigations of wave turbulence in a vibrating plate. The possibility to implement advanced measurement techniques and long-time numerical simulations makes this system extremely valuable for wave turbulence studies. The purely 2D character of dynamics of the elastic plate makes it much simpler to handle compared to much more complex 3D physical systems that are typical of geo- and astrophysical issues (ocean surface or internal waves, magnetized plasmas or strongly rotating and/or stratified flows). When the forcing is small the observed wave turbulence is consistent with the predictions of the weak turbulent theory. Here we focus on the case of stronger forcing for which coherent structures can be observed. These structures look similar to the folds and D-cones that are commonly observed for strongly deformed static thin elastic sheets (crumpled paper) except that they evolve dynamically in our forced system. We describe their evolution and show that their emergence is associated with statistical intermittency (lack of self similarity) of strongly nonlinear wave turbulence. This behavior is reminiscent of intermittency in Navier-Stokes turbulence. Experimental data show hints of the weak to strong turbulence transition. However, due to technical limitations and dissipation, the strong nonlinear regime remains out of reach of experiments and therefore has been explored numerically.

Nonlocal resonances in weak turbulence of gravity-capillary waves.

We report a laboratory investigation of weak turbulence of water surface waves in the gravity-capillary crossover. By using time-space-resolved profilometry and a bicoherence analysis, we observe that the nonlinear processes involve three-wave resonant interactions. By studying the solutions of the resonance conditions, we show that the nonlinear interaction is dominantly one dimensional and involves collinear wave vectors. Furthermore, taking into account the spectral widening due to weak nonlinearity explains why nonlocal interactions are possible between a gravity wave and high-frequency capillary ones. We observe also that nonlinear three-wave coupling is possible among gravity waves, and we raise the question of the relevance of this mechanism for oceanic waves.

Role of dissipation in flexural wave turbulence: from experimental spectrum to Kolmogorov-Zakharov spectrum.

The weak turbulence theory has been applied to waves in thin elastic plates obeying the Föppl-Von Kármán dynamical equations. Subsequent experiments have shown a strong discrepancy between the theoretical predictions and the measurements. Both the dynamical equations and the weak turbulence theory treatment require some restrictive hypotheses. Here a direct numerical simulation of the Föppl-Von Kármán equations is performed and reproduces qualitatively and quantitatively the experimental results when the experimentally measured damping rate of waves γ_{k}=a+bk{2} is used. This confirms that the Föppl-Von Kármán equations are a valid theoretical framework to describe our experiments. When we progressively tune the dissipation so that to localize it at the smallest scales, we observe a gradual transition between the experimental spectrum and the Kolmogorov-Zakharov prediction. Thus, it is shown that dissipation has a major influence on the scaling properties of stationary solutions of weakly nonlinear wave turbulence.

Transition from wave turbulence to dynamical crumpling in vibrated elastic plates.

We study the dynamical regime of wave turbulence of a vibrated thin elastic plate based on experimental and numerical observations. We focus our study on the strongly nonlinear regime described in a previous Letter by Yokoyama and Takaoka. At small forcing, a weakly nonlinear regime is compatible with the weak turbulence theory when the dissipation is localized at high wave number. When the forcing intensity is increased, a strongly nonlinear regime emerges: singular structures dominate the dynamics at large scales whereas at small scales the weak turbulence is still present. A turbulence of singular structures with folds and D cones develops that alters significantly the energy spectra and causes the emergence of intermittency.

Nonstationary wave turbulence in an elastic plate.

We report experimental results on the decay of wave turbulence in an elastic plate obtained by stopping the forcing from a stationary turbulent state. In the stationary case, the forcing is seen to induce some anisotropy and a spectrum in disagreement with the weak turbulence theory. After stopping the forcing, almost perfect isotropy is restored. The decay of energy is self-similar and the observed decaying spectrum is in better agreement with the prediction of the weak turbulence theory. The dissipative part of the spectrum is partially consistent with the theoretical prediction based on previous work by Kolmakov. This suggests that the nonagreement with the weak turbulence theory is mostly due to a spurious effect of the forcing related to the finite size of the system.

Nonlinear dynamics of flexural wave turbulence.

The Kolmogorov-Zakharov spectrum predicted by the weak turbulence theory remains elusive for wave turbulence of flexural waves at the surface of a thin elastic plate. We report a direct measurement of the nonlinear time scale T(NL) related to energy transfer between waves. This time scale is extracted from the space-time measurement of the deformation of the plate by studying the temporal dynamics of wavelet coefficients of the turbulent field. The central hypothesis of the theory is the time scale separation between dissipative time scale, nonlinear time scale, and the period of the wave (T(d) >> T(NL) >> T). We observe that this scale separation is valid in our system. The discrete modes due to the finite size effects are responsible for the disagreement between observations and theory. A crossover from continuous weak turbulence and discrete turbulence is observed when the nonlinear time scale is of the same order of magnitude as the frequency separation of the discrete modes. The Kolmogorov-Zakharov energy cascade is then strongly altered and is frozen before reaching the dissipative regime expected in the theory.

Observation of the nonlinear dispersion relation and spatial statistics of wave turbulence on the surface of a fluid.

We report experiments on gravity-capillary wave turbulence on the surface of a fluid. The wave amplitudes are measured simultaneously in time and space by using an optical method. The full space-time power spectrum shows that the wave energy is localized on several branches in the wave-vector-frequency space. The number of branches depends on the power injected within the waves. The measurement of the nonlinear dispersion relation is found to be well described by a law suggesting that the energy transfer mechanisms involved in wave turbulence are restricted not only to purely resonant interaction between nonlinear waves. The power-law scaling of the spatial spectrum and the probability distribution of the wave amplitudes at a given wave number are also measured and compared to the theoretical predictions.

Space-time resolved wave turbulence in a vibrating plate.

Wave turbulence in a thin elastic plate is experimentally investigated. By using a Fourier transform profilometry technique, the deformation field of the plate surface is measured simultaneously in time and space. This enables us to compute the wave-vector-frequency (k, omega) Fourier spectrum of the full space-time deformation velocity. In the 3D (k, omega) space, we show that the energy of the motion is concentrated on a 2D surface that represents a nonlinear dispersion relation. This nonlinear dispersion relation is close to the linear dispersion relation. This validates the usual wave-number-frequency change of variables used in many experimental studies of wave turbulence. The deviation from the linear dispersion, which increases with the input power of the forcing, is attributed to weak nonlinear effects. Our technique opens the way for many new extensive quantitative comparisons between theory and experiments of wave turbulence.

Reduction of velocity fluctuations in a turbulent flow of gallium by an external magnetic field.

The magnetic field of planets or stars is generated by the motion of a conducting fluid through a dynamo instability. The saturation of the magnetic field occurs through the reaction of the Lorentz force on the flow. In relation to this phenomenon, we study the effect of a magnetic field on a turbulent flow of liquid gallium. The measurement of electric potential differences provides a signal related to the local velocity fluctuations. We observe a reduction of velocity fluctuations at all frequencies in the spectrum when the magnetic field is increased.

Are there waves in elastic wave turbulence?

An thin elastic steel plate is excited with a vibrator and its local velocity displays a turbulentlike Fourier spectrum. This system is believed to develop elastic wave turbulence. We analyze here the motion of the plate with a two-point measurement in order to check, in our real system, a few hypotheses required for the Zakharov theory of weak turbulence to apply. We show that the motion of the plate is indeed a superposition of bending waves following the theoretical dispersion relation of the linear wave equation. The nonlinearities seem to efficiently break the coherence of the waves so that no modal structure is observed. Several hypotheses of the weak turbulence theory seem to be verified, but nevertheless the theoretical predictions for the wave spectrum are not verified experimentally.

Joint statistics of the Lagrangian acceleration and velocity in fully developed turbulence.

We report experimental results on the joint statistics of the Lagrangian acceleration and velocity in highly turbulent flows. The acceleration was measured up to a microscale Reynolds number R(lambda)=690 using high speed silicon strip detectors from high energy physics. The acceleration variance was observed to be strongly dependent on the velocity, following a Heisenberg-Yaglom-like u(9/2) increase. However, the shape of the probability density functions of the acceleration component conditioned on the same component of the velocity when normalized by the acceleration variance was observed to be independent of velocity and to coincide with the unconditional probability density function of the acceleration components. This observation imposes a strong mathematical constraint on the possible functional form of the acceleration probability distribution function.

Three-dimensional structure of the Lagrangian acceleration in turbulent flows.

We report experimental results on the three-dimensional Lagrangian acceleration in highly turbulent flows. Tracer particles are tracked optically using four silicon strip detectors from high energy physics that provide high temporal and spatial resolution. The components of the acceleration are shown to be statistically dependent. The probability density function of the acceleration magnitude is comparable to a log-normal distribution. Assuming isotropy, a log-normal distribution of the magnitude can account for the observed dependency of the components. The time dynamics of the acceleration components is found to be typical of the dissipation scales, whereas the magnitude evolves over longer times, possibly close to the integral time scale.

Time-resolved tracking of a sound scatterer in a complex flow: nonstationary signal analysis and applications.

It is known that ultrasound techniques yield nonintrusive measurements of hydrodynamic flows. For example, the study of the echoes produced by a large number of particles insonified by pulsed wavetrains has led to a now-standard velocimetry device. In this paper, a new technique for the measurement of the velocity of individual solid particles moving in fluid flows is proposed. It relies on the ability to resolve in time the Doppler shift of the sound scattered by the continuously insonified particle. For this signal-processing problem two classes of approaches can be used: time-frequency analysis and parametric high-resolution methods. In the first class the spectrogram and reassigned spectrogram is considered, and applied to detect the motion of a small bead settling in a fluid at rest. In nonstationary flows, methods in the second class are more robust. An approximated maximum likelihood (AML) technique has been adapted, coupled with a generalized Kalman filter. This method allows for the estimation of rapidly varying frequencies; the parametric nature of the algorithm also provides an estimate of the variance of the identified frequency parameters.