Repeated firing of vortex rings into a water tank is shown to create an isolated blob of confined turbulence — perfect for studying the nature of turbulence and its interface with quiescence. Moreover, using coherent vortex rings to feed the turbulence allows the controlled injection of conserved quantities such as helicity.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Davidson, P. A. Turbulence: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers (Oxford Univ. Press, 2015). This book describes the central concepts of turbulence, such as energy cascade and similarity hypotheses.
Moffatt, H. K. Helicity and singular structures in fluid dynamics. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 111, 3663–3670 (2014). An article on helicity and its roles in hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics.
Akhmetov, D. G. Vortex Rings (Springer, 2009). This book reviews both theoretical and experimental investigations of vortex rings.
Oshima, Y. Head-on collision of two vortex rings. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 44, 328–331 (1978). This article describes head-on collision of vortex rings through photographs and simulations.
McKeown, R., Ostilla-Mónico, R., Pumir, A., Brenner, M. P. & Rubinstein, S. M. Turbulence generation through an iterative cascade of the elliptical instability. Sci. Adv. 6, eaaz2717 (2020). This article demonstrates the difficulty of confining turbulence via the head-on collision of vortex rings.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This is a summary of: Matsuzawa, T., Mitchell, N. P., Perrard, S. & Irvine, W. T. M. Creation of an isolated turbulent blob fed by vortex rings. Nat. Phys. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02052-0 (2023).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Turbulence can be sustained and controlled using coherent vortex rings. Nat. Phys. 19, 1088–1089 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02054-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02054-y
