Dynamics of spinodal decomposition in turbulent flows

When a binary mixture is cooled below its critical temperature it undergoes a phase transition and the mixture separates into its individual components: this phenomenon is widely known as spinodal decomposition. The dynamics proceeds through different regimes all characterized by a coarsening of the domain size. We investigate numerically the dynamics of such a system when the mixture of immiscible fluids is stirred at the large scale and thus turbulent. Under turbulent conditions we find that the coarsening of the domains is arrested and a similarity with the physics of dilute turbulent emulsions is possible. In particular we show that the typical domain size can be estimated by means of the Kolmogorov-Hinze argument for the stability of droplets in turbulence