The renormalization group, the \(\epsilon\)-expansion and derivation of turbulence models (Q1194997)

This paper tries to reformulate the renormalization group and \(\varepsilon\)-expansion method for derivation of turbulence models. The procedure is developed for the Navier-Stokes equations and the transport equations for the kinetic energy and energy dissipation rate. In this theory, the small-scale velocity fluctuations are driven by a universal random force \(\vec f\), which represents the average effect of the large- scale features of the flow. It implies that the small-scale velocity fluctuations are generated by hydrodynamic instability which occurs at the large scales and strongly depends on large-scale features such as boundary conditions and geometry. The authors have shown that the method presented in this paper represents a general procedure that can be used to derive models for turbulence at any level of complexity, for example, including rotation, stratification, or compressibility. Such flows are described by several dimensionless parameters, and are not easy to model using heuristic methods. The paper is, however, only of academic interest.