A possible explanation for Nordin, McQuivey, and Mejia's Observation of the Hurst Phenomenon in turbulence

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Nordin et al. [1972] have analyzed a number of records of turbulent velocity fluctuations in several open channels and have concluded that within the range of their observations the rescaled range of the velocity deviation increases faster than the square root of time. This implies that turbulent fluctuations have a longer memory, or correlation time, than the period of the observations. This letter suggests a possible explanation.When the writer was beginning his Ph.D. dissertation experiments [Fischer, 1966], he made some visual experiments in which a line source of a small quantity of intense blue dye was dropped onto the surface of a uniform flow. The flow was approximately 6 cm deep in a rectangular, smooth‐bottomed channel 110 cm wide. The dye was dropped onto the water surface to form an initially straight line perpendicular to the flow direction. Invariably, the line did not remain straight. Soon after hitting the water surface some of the dye was carried forward of the line in the shape of a series of tongues. Between the tongues some of the dye lagged behind the line and formed a series of tails. Figure 1a is a sketch of the appearance of the line shortly after entering the water. The striking observation was that each time the experiment was repeated the tongues and tails were separated by a distance of approximately twice the depth of flow.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: