Prandtl number effects on passive scalars in turbulent pipe flow

Abstract

We study the statistics of passive scalars (either temperature or concentration of a diffusing substance) at friction Reynolds number ${Re}_{\tau }=1140$ , for turbulent flow within a smooth straight pipe of circular cross-section, in the range of Prandtl numbers from ${Pr}=0.00625$ , to ${Pr}=16$ , using direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the Navier–Stokes equations. Whereas the organization of passive scalars is similar to the axial velocity field at ${Pr} = O(1)$ , similarity is impaired at low Prandtl number, at which the buffer-layer dynamics is filtered out, and at high Prandtl number, at which the passive scalar fluctuations become confined to the near-wall layer. The mean scalar profiles at ${Pr} \gtrsim 0.0125$ are found to exhibit logarithmic overlap layers, and universal parabolic distributions in the core part of the flow. Near-universality of the eddy diffusivity is exploited to derive accurate predictive formulas for the mean scalar profiles, and for the corresponding logarithmic offset function. Asymptotic scaling formulas are derived for the thickness of the conductive (diffusive) layer, for the peak scalar variance, and its production rate. The DNS data are leveraged to synthesize a modified form of the classical predictive formula of Kader & Yaglom (Intl J. Heat Mass Transfer, vol. 15, 1972, pp. 2329–2351), which is capable of accounting accurately for the dependence on both Reynolds and Prandtl numbers, for ${Pr} \gtrsim 0.25$ .