Identification of Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCS) in accelerating turbulent boundary layers

Guillermo Araya, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

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It is well known the crucial role of coherent structures (CS) in transporting momentum, energy and passive scalar fluxes. Significant effort has been invested in last two decades in terms of identifying and evaluating CS. The vortex identification Eulerian methods (such as Q, λ₂ and λ_ci methods) can effectively describe coherent features of the instantaneous flow fluid or passive scalar but lack objectivity. Haller and his colleagues have pioneered in the area of identifying and tracking CS by means of a Lagrangian approach, called Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCS). Due to this, the proposed approach of LCS will allow us to identify important structures in turbulent boundary layers subject to strong favorable pressure gradient via a rigorous mathematical framework. The LCS approach is a cutting-edge CS identification technique with high level of precision. At the same time, LCS require high spatial/temporal resolution data with a consequent high computational cost. The main purpose of the BWSIP internship project will be to develop a post-processing code in CUDA platform and GPU capabilities in order to identify LCS (eigenvalues and eigenvectors) from a Direct Numerical Simulation database. The intern will be able to acquire knowledge on turbulent structures as well as skills on high performance computing, GPU programming and big data management.