Objectives: This course is intended to provide students with a general background in turbulent flows. Behavior of turbulent flows, descriptions and statistical approaches will be discussed. The first part of the class will focus on the description of turbulence and tools used to provide this description. Detailed discussions of selected turbulent flows will be provided. Each of these examples will be chosen to highlight specific features of turbulent flows. This will be followed by a discussion of modeling approaches. The approaches discussed will follow the historical development and include both modeling approaches for turbulent momentum transport and turbulent scalar mixing. The course is intended to provide both a background for students interested in further advanced research studies in turbulence, as well as those seeking background to interpret and understand the current state of the study of turbulence. An outline is available by clicking here.

Text: The main source of information will be notes provided by the instructor supplemented by references. Information presented in class will be referenced to that presented in various textbooks. Particularly the text “Turbulent Flows,” Cambridge University Press, 2000 by S.B. Pope. The text has been ordered and should be available by the second week in january.

Homework, Tests, Projects: Various exercises will be given periodically during the course. These are intended to make the student think in more detail about the concepts discussed in class and apply these concepts. It is expected that most students taking this course are interested in some aspects of research or advanced studies in turbulence. To assist in this within the scope of this course, each student will be required to define a comprehensive course project. This project must be defined by the third week of the semester. The results of this project will be presented to the class at the end of the course. The homework and class project will be weighted equally in determining the final grade.