Structure and dynamics of small-scale turbulence in vaporizing two-phase flows

Improving our fundamental understanding of multiphase turbulent flows will be beneficial for analyses of a wide range of industrial and geophysical processes. Herein, we investigate the topology of the local flow in vaporizing forced homogeneous isotropic turbulent two-phase flows. The invariants of the velocity-gradient, rate-of-strain, rate-of-rotation tensors, and scalar gradient were computed and conditioned for different distances from the liquid–gas surface. A Schur decomposition of the velocity gradient tensor into a normal and non-normal parts was undertaken to supplement the classical double decomposition into rotation and strain tensors. Using direct numerical simulations results, we show that the joint probability density functions of the second and third invariants have classical shapes in all carrier-gas regions but gradually change as they approach the carrier-liquid interface. Near the carrier-liquid interface, the distributions of the invariants are remarkably similar to those found in the viscous sublayer of turbulent wall-bounded flows. Furthermore, the alignment of both vorticity and scalar gradient with the strain-rate field changes spatially such that its universal behaviour occurs far from the liquid–gas interface. We found also that the non-normal effects of the velocity gradient tensor play a crucial role in explaining the preferred alignment.