Population Distribution in the Wake of a Sphere

Abstract

The fluid physics of the heat and mass transfer from an object in its wake has much importance for natural phenomena as well as for many engineering applications. Here, we report numerical results on the population density of the spatial distribution of fluid velocity, pressure, scalar concentration and scalar fluxes of a wake flow past a sphere in the steady wake regime (Reynolds number 25 to 285). We find the population density to be well described by a Lorentzian distribution. We observe this apparently universal form both in the symmetric wake regime and in the more complex three dimensional wake structure of the steady oblique regime with Reynolds number larger than 225. The population density distribution identifies the increase in dimensionless kinetic energy and scalar fluxes with the increase in Reynolds number, whereas the dimensionless scalar population density shows negligible variation with the Reynolds number.