Unity and diversity in mixing: Stretching, diffusion, breakup, and aggregation in chaotic flows

Journal Article · Wed May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1991 · Physics of Fluids A; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.858020· OSTI ID:5678347

Ottino, J M ^[1]

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1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208-3100 (US)

Experiments and theory have produced a reasonably good qualitative understanding of the evolution of chaotic mixing of passive tracers, especially in two-dimensional time-periodic flow fields. Such an understanding forms a fabric for the evolution of breakup, aggregation, and diffusion-controlled reactions in more complex flows. These systems can be viewed as a population of microstructures'' whose behavior is dictated by iterations of a chaotic flow; microstructures break, diffuse, and aggregate, causing the population to evolve in space and time. This paper presents simple physical models for such processes. Self-similarity is common to all the problems; examples arise in the context of the distribution of stretchings within chaotic flows, in the asymptotic evolution of diffusion-reaction processes at striation thickness scales, in the equilibrium distribution of drop sizes generated upon mixing of immiscible fluids, in the equations describing mean-field kinetics of coagulation, in the sequence of actions necessary for the destruction of islands in two-dimensional flow, and in the fractal structure of clusters produced upon aggregation in chaotic flows.

• OSTI ID: 5678347
• Journal Information: Physics of Fluids A; (USA), Journal Name: Physics of Fluids A; (USA) Vol. 3:5; ISSN 0899-8213; ISSN PFADE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640410* -- Fluid Physics-- General Fluid Dynamics
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
AGGLOMERATION
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
DIFFUSION
DOCUMENT TYPES
DROPLETS
FLUID FLOW
FLUIDS
ISOTOPE APPLICATIONS
LAMINAR FLOW
MAPPING
MICROSTRUCTURE
MIXING
MOLECULES
PARTICLES
RANDOMNESS
REVIEWS
STOCHASTIC PROCESSES
TRACER TECHNIQUES
VELOCITY