External intermittency compensation of dissipation scale distributions in a turbulent boundary layer

The influence of external intermittency on the scaling of the dissipation scale distribution is examined in turbulent boundary layer flow at Reτ≈1000. Probability density functions (PDFs) of the dissipative scales are compared with, and without, accounting for the external intermittency using an intermittency detection function. Results showed that accounting for the external intermittency produces better consistency in the shapes of the PDFs at the same wall-normal location at different instances in time. In addition, properly scaling the dissipation scale distribution collapses the probability density functions calculated at different wall-normal locations. This improvement in the scaling of the dissipation scale distribution supports prior observations of universality of the small-scale description of the turbulence for wall-bounded flow.