What is it about?
The paper reviews the pioneering turbulence closure approximations (Kraichnan's DIA, Edwards SCF) and for the first time gives a unified explanation of why these theories failed. It then goes on to provide a formal theoretical physics derivation of the successful LET theory, which had previously been derived by heuristic methods.
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Why is it important?
The turbulence statistical closure problem was formulated by Osborne Reynolds at the end of the 19th century, and since then has been the bedrock difficulty in attempts to predict turbulent flows. It has been extensively studied for decades by means of ad hoc engineering models, with mixed success. The significance of the LET theory is that it can provide a basis for a more general and unified approach.
Perspectives
I have worked on this problem for several decades and regard the present paper as probably constituting my legacy. It is a mixture of a review and a report of new work.
Professor David McComb
University of Edinburgh
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A formal derivation of the local energy transfer (LET) theory of homogeneous turbulence, Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical, August 2017, Institute of Physics Publishing,
DOI: 10.1088/1751-8121/aa8379.
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