Is Turbulence a State of Maximal Dissipation?

Martin Mihelich (1) , Davide Faranda (2) , Didier Paillard (2) , Bérengère Dubrulle (1)

1 SPHYNX - Systèmes Physiques Hors-équilibre, hYdrodynamique, éNergie et compleXes
2 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]

It has sometimes been suggested that turbulence is a state of "maximal dissipation" or "maximal transport". In this paper, we connect this principle to the Maximum Entropy Production principle (MEP) and observe that it seems to be valid in a turbulent bifurcation in a von Karman flow. The goal of this paper is to show that MEP principle could find a justification in a chained-relationship which involves studying the connections among MEP, Kolmogorov Sinai Entropy and mixing times. We stress that this principle might actually be limited to quite special situations, where symmetry or dynamics impose pure mixing of a quantity (like angular momentum, momentum or temperature). Shear flow, Rayleigh Benard convection and von Karman flows belong to this category.

Mots clés: Maximum Entropy Production; Turbulence; Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy

Domaines: Dynamique des Fluides [physics.flu-dyn]; Analyse de données, Statistiques et Probabilités [physics.data-an]

Martin Mihelich, Davide Faranda, Didier Paillard, Bérengère Dubrulle. Is Turbulence a State of Maximal Dissipation?. 2017. ⟨hal-01460706v1⟩