Creation of turbulence in polyatomic gas flow via an intermolecular potential

Rafail V. Abramov
Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 054605 – Published 25 May 2022

Abstract

We develop a tractable interaction model for a polyatomic gas, whose kinetic equation combines a Vlasov-type mean field forcing due to an intermolecular potential, and a Boltzmann-type collision integral due to rotational interactions. We construct a velocity moment hierarchy for the kinetic equation, and find that, under the high Reynolds number condition, the pressure equation becomes decoupled from the angular momentum and stress. For the heat flux, we propose a closure by prescribing the specific-heat capacity of the gas flow. Setting the specific-heat capacity to that of a constant-pressure process leads to the system of equations for a balanced flow, where the momentum transport equation contains the mean field forcing, which is an averaged effect of the intermolecular potential. Remarkably, the balanced flow equations do not contain any information about internal thermodynamic properties of the gas, and are thereby applicable to a broad range of different gases. We conduct numerical simulations for an airlike gas at normal conditions in the inertial flow regime, where the pressure is constant throughout the domain. We find that the presence of the intermolecular potential produces a distinctly turbulent flow, whose time-averaged Fourier spectra of the kinetic energy and temperature exhibit Kolmogorov's power decay.

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  • Received 19 January 2022
  • Accepted 10 May 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.054605

©2022 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Fluid Dynamics

Authors & Affiliations

Rafail V. Abramov*

  • Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago, 851 S. Morgan St., Chicago, Illinois 60607, USA

  • *abramov@uic.edu

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Vol. 7, Iss. 5 — May 2022

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