Statistics of preferential particle concentration in free-surface

ORAL

Abstract

Particles floating on a turbulent surface of water cluster into temporally complex patterns. We experimentally study the statistics of this preferential particle concentration for various Reynolds numbers, for both transient and steady-state dynamics. The probability density function for particle concentration exhibits a power-law with an exponential cut-off. We will discuss our preliminary analysis as to how this distribution depends upon the Reynolds number and the spatial-scale $r$ at which the system is coarse-grained.

*This work supported by National Science Foundation grant DMR NSF 0604477. MMB carried out this work under the auspices of the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy at LANL under contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396.

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Authors

  • Jason Larkin

    • University of Pittsburgh

  • Walter Goldburg

    • University of Pittsburgh

  • Mahesh Bandi

    • Los Alamos National Laboratory
    • Center for Nonlinear Studies and Condensed Matter \& Thermal Physics Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory