On the scaling of shear-driven entrainment: a DNS study

The deepening of a shear-driven turbulent layer penetrating into a stably stratified quiescent layer is studied using direct numerical simulation (DNS). The simulation design mimics the classical laboratory experiments by Kato & Phillips (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 37, 1969, pp. 643–655) in that it starts with linear stratification and applies a constant shear stress at the lower boundary, but avoids sidewall and rotation effects inherent in the original experiment. It is found that the layers universally deepen as a function of the square root of time, independent of the initial stratification and the Reynolds number of the simulations, provided that the Reynolds number is large enough. Consistent with this finding, the dimensionless entrainment velocity varies with the bulk Richardson number as Ri−1/2. In addition, it is observed that all cases evolve in a self-similar fashion. A self-similarity analysis of the conservation equations shows that only a square root growth law is consistent with self-similar behaviour.