Numerical simulation of the compressible Orszag-Tang vortex. Interim report, June 1988-February 1989

Technical Report · Thu Jun 08 00:00:00 EDT 1989

OSTI ID:5593540

Dahlburg, R B; Picone, J M

Results of fully compressible, Fourier collocation, numerical simulations of the Orszag-Tang vortex system are presented. Initial conditions consist of a nonrandom, periodic field in which the magnetic and velocity fields contain X-points but differ in modal structure along one spatial direction. The velocity field is initially solenoidal, with the total initial pressure-field consisting of the superposition of the appropriate incompressible pressure distribution upon a flat pressure field corresponding to the initial, average flow Mach number of the flow. In the numerical simulations, this initial Mach number is varied from 0.2 to 0.6. These values correspond to average plasma beta values ranging from 30.0 to 3.3, respectively. Compressible effects develop within one or two Alfven transit times, as manifested in the spectra of compressible quantities such as mass density and nonsolenoidal flow field. These effects include (1) retardation of growth of correlation between the magnetic field and the velocity field, (2) emergence of compressible small-scale structure such as massive jets, and (3) bifurcation of eddies in the compressible-flow field. Differences between the incompressible and compressible results tend to increase with increasing initial average Mach number.

• Research Organization: Naval Research Lab., Washington, DC (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5593540
• Report Number(s): AD-A-210465/1/XAB; NRL-MR-6486
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
COMPRESSIBLE FLOW
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
INCOMPRESSIBLE FLOW
SOLAR WIND
VORTEX FLOW
DENSITY
MACH NUMBER
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MASS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
PROGRESS REPORT
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
SPECTRA
TURBULENCE
VELOCITY
VORTICES
DISTRIBUTION
DOCUMENT TYPES
FLUID FLOW
FLUID MECHANICS
HYDRODYNAMICS
MATHEMATICS
MECHANICS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
SOLAR ACTIVITY
640430* - Fluid Physics- Magnetohydrodynamics