Marcus Bker*, Western Illinois University G.

Tripoli, University of Wisconsin-Madison

TORNADOES, THOMSON, AND TURBULENCE: Turbulent hydrodynamics APPLICATION OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC-HYDRODYNAMIC (EM-HD) ANALOGY Navier-Stokes TO ATMOSPHERIC COHERENT STRUCTURE Lamb vector
ML-Buker@wiu.edu tripoli@aos.wisc.edu
M Belevich 2008 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41 045401 doi: 10.1088/1751-8113/41/4/045401 Marmanis, H Analogy between the Navier-Stokes equations and Maxwells equations: Application to turbulence Physics of Fluids, Volume 10, Issue 6, pp. 1428-1437 (1998). C.W. Hamman, J.C. Klewicki and R.M. Kirby, On the Lamb vector divergence in Navier-Stokes Flows, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol.610 pp. 261-284, 2008. Steinhoff and Underhill, Modification of the Euler equations for ``vorticity confinement: Application to the computation of interacting vortex rings, Phys. Fluids 6, 2738 (1994); doi:10.1063/1.868164 Wu, J. et al. Turbulent force as a diffusive field with vortical sources Phys. Fluids 11, 627 (1999); doi:10.1063/1.869934

Electromagnetism
= electric field magnetic induction

(after Marmanis(1998), Belevich(2008) and Pinheiro (2009)

Analogous Variables

Stokes Theorem states that vortex lines cannot just end in the middle of a fluid; they must either loop back on themWhat does selves, or terminate at a surface. That does not preclude aligned alignment of vortex segments, however. One can envision a really mean? poloidal configuration of vortex lines aligning themselves within the tornado, as in the figure left-below (Fig. 7).

Vector and scalar potential Coloumb Thomson Faradays Law Amperes Law (zero polarization) magnetic field strength and magnetization electric charge density

7)

OK, we are aligned. Now what?

There is another EM-analogous parameter that is usually looked at in terms of hurricane prediction: the beta effect. Known for drawing a hurricane (small vortex) upgradient toward higher same-signed vorticity (Coriolis parameter), this new parameter is directly analogous to the same mechanism responsible for magnetic shielding of charged particles: the force on the particle in proportional to the gradient of the configuration of vorticity aligned with the particles magnetic moment: Substituting in the analogous variables, one obtains a formula for the force on a small local moment, which is generally aligned with the largescale rotation: This vortex beta parameter is shown on the figure right (Fig. 8) on the 4th nested grid. An isosurface of vorticity magnitude (The main feature is the tornado) is colored by the intensity of the beta parameter. Yellow values indicate high levels of vortex-beta.

and vorticity

Theoretical development regarding atmospheric turbulence has been one of the most challenging research problems over the last century. Given the breadth of application (e.g. wind energy, tornadogenesis, climate change), it is clear why there is such an interest in the subject. However, while incremental advances have been made in recent years (with the help of exponentially improving computational resources) there has not been a clear paradigm shift in some time. Even so, there is a slowly growing body of literature utilizing the potentially synergistic relationship between the sciences of electromagnetism and fluid dynamics. This synergy is built on the fact that the equations that govern fluid dynamics and the equations that govern electromagnetism are virtually identical. Exploiting the synergy between the sum of the knowledge on both sides of the EM-HD science community may be a catalyst for a radical shift in how turbulence is studied.

Sources: A. Martins and M. J. Pinheiro, Fluidic electrodynamics: Approach to electromagnetic propulsion. Phys. Fluids 21, 097103 (2009); doi:10.1063/1.3236802

vorticity tendency
viscous term removed

z y x

Lamb vector tendency and turbulent current ( ) vorticity field strength ( ) and magnetization turbulent charge density

1)
10 km

15 km

One of the main struggles in the numerical modeling of tornadoes is the tendency for over-production of turbulent diffusion in the vicinity of the vortex. Several methods have been developed to combat this numerical loss of kinetic energy, including vortex confinement, (e.g. Steinhoff and Underhill, 1994) and other antidiffusion methods. However, it seems desirable to find physical reasoning for why a tornado does not tear itself apart into turbulence. Observations show that there is a coherent organization and subsequent breakdown of the parent vortex and surrounding vortex filaments. In order for vor- The divergence of the Lamb vector has been shown to play a significant tex filaments to merge into the parent vortex, they must (1) be aligned with the parent vortex and (2) role in showing where a fluid has potenbe advected toward (or into) the core of the parent vortex. tial to provide an acceleration to the Using the Lamb vector and some of the relationships well-known in electromagnetism, we examine the flow (Hamman, 2007), and the evolution of the Lamb vector divergence is gainbehavior and self-organization potential of vortex filaments surrounding a tornado in a very highing increasing utility in turbulence studies resolution simulation. We use the University of Wisconsin Nonhydrostatic Modeling System (UWNMS), (Wu, 1996). To the right (Fig. 4a) shows with up to 5 nested grids, obtaining horizontal and vertical resolution below 25 meters. An idealized the horizontal streamlines of the Lamb vertical sounding, based on a tornadic outbreak event, is used to initialize the meteorological fields. vector field at 4.7 km altitude, along with the divergence in color. Note the Fig. 1 (left) shows a 0.5 s-1 isosurface of vorticity magnitude, colored by local vertical angular momentum. The surface-level plane shows local radius of streamline curvature, ranging from 100 m (red) to 10 similarity to typical electric field lines around a positive charge (Figure 4b). km (blue). At this point in the simulation, some of the parent vortex has broken into several filaments. The interaction of these filaments with the parent vortex can be visualized in the schematic shown in Fig. 2 (bottom left). The counter-torque yielding alignment of the flywheel with the largescale vorticity lies in the direction of the cross product of the local moment Decomposing the Lamb vector into mean and perturbation components, one finds only one combina- and the mean rotation, identical in form to the torque on a current loop or tion will yield a torque across a segment of vortex filament. This is used to diagnose gyroscopic align- magnetic dipole placed in an external magnetic field. ment torque, which is explained in the diagrams in Fig. 3 (below).

4a)

4b)

To calculate these new parameters, information was needed about the LOCALLY defined angular momentum. Since the pressure gradient force is the only force (besides friction) that accelerates the flow in a Lagrangian sense, the normal component of pressure gradient acceleration to velocity was computed, and from this a local radius of curvature was obtained. The figure to the right (Fig. 5) is the 1 km altitude local radius of curvature in color; yellow is bigger (~ 15 km) and blue is smaller(~ 500m), and the locally computed magnitude of angular momentum (contours every 3 x 103 m2s-1). Obviously, there is a strong correlation of local angular momentum and the local curvature radius: While there were reservations and questions regarding the use of a variable point of reference for the angular momentum calculation, when used in an EMformulation for gyroscopic torque, there was overwhelming agreement with the Lamb vector formulation. Given this information, plus given the calculated curvature radius near the tornado strongly agreed with the actual radius (~ 500m) we have confidence that the data are meaningful.

Isosurface of vorticity magnitude, colored by the magnitude of the 3-D vortex beta vector. Orange arrow indicates direction of vortex beta force.
This vortex beta force competes against the so-called Magnus effect, which acts through the Lamb-vector term

15 km

5)

( see Fig. 3 ) to eject like-signed embedded vortices away from the center of large-scale rotation. Thus, there will be a competition between the beta force (strongly dependent upon the gradient of like-signed large-scale vorticity) and the Magnus effect in the final merger process. A basic relationship could be then formulated into a net merging force :

2)

3)
Only has significant gyroscopic potential !

= large-scale magnetic field induced by wire current

In Figs. 6a-b (below), there is remarkable comparison of the EM-formulated gryoscopic torque (left) and the Lamb vector formulation (right). The bright yellow patches indicate strong torque. The area in the southeast part of the domain is the region of strong vorticity associated with the advancing gust front associated with the rear flanking downdraft. A new downdraft pulse is also forming north of the mesocylone. Also note the reduction of numerical noise in the EMformulation.

The Lamb vector term is positive, since

6a)

6b)

N
When the perturbation and mean vorticity are aligned, the perturbation Lamb vector becomes irrotational (and thus, there is no torque).

Gyroscope

5 km

Self-alignment of small-scale moments in the presence of a large-scale field is ubiquitous in both EM and HD. It is likely that the reason is linked to the tendency of a RFD vorticity physical system to seek the lowest energy state.

= magenta Parent Vorticity = dark purple