The determination of turbulence-model statistics from the velocity–acceleration correlation

For inhomogeneous turbulent flows at high Reynolds number, it is shown that the redistribution term in Reynolds-stress turbulence models can be determined from the velocity–acceleration correlation. It is further shown that the drift coefficient in the generalized Langevin model (which is used in probability density function (PDF) methods) can be determined from the Reynolds stresses and the velocity– acceleration correlation. These observations are valuable, since the second moments of velocity and acceleration can be measured in experiments, in direct numerical simulations and in well-resolved large-eddy simulations (LES), and hence these turbulence-model quantities can be determined. The redistribution is closely related to the pressure–rate-of-strain, and the unknown in the PDF equation is closely related to the conditional mean pressure gradient (conditional on velocity). In contrast to the velocity–acceleration moments, these pressure statistics are much more difficult to obtain, and our knowledge of them is quite limited. It is also shown that the generalized Langevin model can be re-expressed to provide a direct connection between the drift term and the fluid acceleration. All of these results are first obtained using the constant-property Navier–Stokes equations, but it is then shown that the results are simply extended to variable-density flows.