Effect of the Prandtl number on a stratified turbulent wake

Direct numerical simulation is employed to study the effect of the Prandtl number, Pr=nu/alpha with nu the molecular viscosity and alpha the molecular diffusivity, on a turbulent wake in a stratified fluid. Simulations were conducted at a Reynolds number of 10 000, Re=UD/nu with U the velocity of the body and D the diameter of the body, for a range of Prandtl numbers: 0.2, 1, and 7. The simulations were run from x/D=6 to x/D=1200, a range that encompasses the near, intermediate, and far wake. Mean quantities such as wake dimensions and defect velocity were found to be weakly affected by Prandtl number, the same result was observed for vorticity as well. The Prandtl number has a strong effect on the density perturbation field and this results in a number of differences in quantities such as the total energy of the wake, wave flux, scalar and turbulent dissipation, mixing efficiency, spectral distribution of energy in the density and velocity fields, and the transfer of energy between kinetic and potential modes. The approximation Pr=1 for the ocean is often used in practice. As the qualitative behavior of the large-scale features was the same for the three cases, we conclude that Pr=1 is a reasonable approximation for the Pr=7 case in stratified wake simulations, given the significantly higher computational cost required at large Prandtl number. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3478841]