Pressure statistics in self-similar freely decaying isotropic turbulence

International audienceThe time evolution of pressure statistics in freely decaying homogeneous isotropic turbulence (HIT) is investigated via eddy-damped quasi-normal Markovian (EDQNM) computations. The present results show that the time decay rate of pressure-based statistical quantities, such as pressure variance and pressure gradient variance, are sensitive to the breakdown of permanence of large eddies. New formulae for the associated time-decay exponents are proposed, which extend previous relations proposed in Lesieur, Ossia & Metais (Phys. Fluids, vol. 11, 1999, p. 1535). Particular attention is paid to finite-Reynolds-number (FRN) effects on the pressure spectrum and pressure statistics. The results also suggest that Reλ=O(104) must be considered to observe a one-decade inertial range in the pressure spectrum with Kolmogorov −7/3 scaling. This threshold value is larger than almost all existing direct numerical simulation (DNS) and experimental data, justifying the discussion about other possible scaling laws. The −5/3 slope reported in some DNS data is also recovered by the EDQNM model, but it is observed to be a low-Reynolds-number effect. Another important result is that FRN effects yield a departure from asymptotic theoretical behaviours which appear similar to some effects attributed to intermittency by most authors. This is exemplified by the ratio between pressure-based and velocity-based Taylor microscales. Therefore, high-Reynolds-number DNS or experiments such that Reλ=O(104) would be required in order to remove FRN effects and to analyse pure intermittency effects