Suppression of turbulent resistivity in turbulent Couette flow

Journal Article · Wed Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4926582· OSTI ID:22490968

Si, Jiahe; Sonnenfeld, Richard G.; Colgate, Arthur S.; Westpfahl, David J.; Romero, Van D.; Martinic, Joe ^[1]; Colgate, Stirling A.; Li, Hui ^[2]; Nornberg, Mark D. ^[3]

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1. New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico 87801 (United States)
2. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87544 (United States)
3. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 (United States)

Turbulent transport in rapidly rotating shear flow very efficiently transports angular momentum, a critical feature of instabilities responsible both for the dynamics of accretion disks and the turbulent power dissipation in a centrifuge. Turbulent mixing can efficiently transport other quantities like heat and even magnetic flux by enhanced diffusion. This enhancement is particularly evident in homogeneous, isotropic turbulent flows of liquid metals. In the New Mexico dynamo experiment, the effective resistivity is measured using both differential rotation and pulsed magnetic field decay to demonstrate that at very high Reynolds number rotating shear flow can be described entirely by mean flow induction with very little contribution from correlated velocity fluctuations.

• OSTI ID: 22490968
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 7; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ACCRETION DISKS
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
CENTRIFUGES
COUETTE FLOW
FLUCTUATIONS
INSTABILITY
LIQUID METALS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETIC FLUX
NEW MEXICO
REYNOLDS NUMBER
ROTATING PLASMA
SHEAR
TURBULENT FLOW