<p>Granular materials are hard to understand due to their discrete and a-thermal nature. The mechanical response of a granular packing under external deformations, although highly relevant in industrial processes, is still poorly understood, partly due to the difficulty to generate a homogeneous granular packing. In this thesis, I present a novel shear apparatus that avoids the formation of inhomogeneities known as shear bands. This apparatus provides quasi-static, quasi-uniform simple shear deformation to a 2D model granular system under fixed packing fraction &phi. The position, orientation and forces for each particle are obtained at each shear step, using the photo-elastic technique. This model granular system exhibits coupling between the shear strain, &gamma, and the pressure, P, which we characterize by the `Reynolds pressure', and a `Reynolds coefficient', R(&phi) = (&partial^2 P/ &partial &gamma^2)/2. Under cyclic shear, this system evolves logarithmically slowly towards limit cycle dynamics, which we characterize in terms of pressure relaxation at cycle n: &Delta P &simeq - &beta ln(n/n_0). &beta depends only on the shear cycle amplitude, suggesting an activated process where &beta plays a temperature-like role. In addition, particles in the sheared system are diffusive. The translational and rotational diffusion, observed under stroboscopic view during cyclic shear, are observed to depend on the packing fraction but not on the stress states of the system. Finally, the structure of the force network, and how that connects to the mechanical behavior, is also briefly discussed.</p> / Dissertation

Despite significant advancements in the understanding of fluid flows, combustion and material technologies, hypersonic flight still presents numerous technological challenges. In hypersonic vehicles turbulence is critical in controlling heat generation in the boundary layer, mixing inside the combustor, generation of acoustic noise, and mass flow in the intake. The study of turbulence in highly compressible flows is challenging compared to incompressible due to a drastic change in the behavior of pressure and a relaxation of the incompressibility constraint. In addition fluid flow inside a flight vehicle is complicated by wall-effects, heat generation and complex boundary conditions. Homogeneous shear flow contains most of the relevant physics of boundary and mixing layers without the aforementioned complicating effects. In this work we aim to understand and characterize the role of pressure, velocity-pressure interaction, velocity-thermodynamics interaction in the late-stage transition-to-turbulence regime in a high speed shear dominated flow by studying the evolution of perturbations in in a high Mach number homogeneous shear flow. We use a modal-analysis based approach towards understanding the statistical behavior of turbulence. Individual Fourier waves constituting the initial flow field are studied in isolation and in combination to understand collective statistical behavior. We demonstrate proof of concept of novel acoustic based strategies for controlling the onset of turbulence. Towards this goal we perform direct numerical simulations (DNS) in three studies: (a) development and evaluation of gas kinetic based numerical tool for DNS of compressible turbulence, and perform detailed evaluation of the efficacy of different interpolation schemes in capturing solenoidal and dilatational quantities, (b) modal investigation in the behavior of pressure and isolation of linear, non-linear, inertial and pressure actions, and (c) modal investigation in the possible acoustic based control strategies in homogeneously sheared compressible flows. The findings help to understand the manifestation of the effects of compressibility on transition and turbulence via the velocity-pressure interactions and the action of individual waves. The present study helps towards the design of control mechanisms for compressible turbulence and the development of physically consistent pressure strain correlation models.

Ce travail de thèse porte sur l’étude de l’accélération de particules fluides et inertielles en déplacement dans une turbulence soumise à un gradient de vitesse moyen. L’objectif est de récupérer des données de référence afin de développer des modèles LES stochastiques pour la prédiction de l’accélération de sous-maille et l’accélération de particules inertielles dans des conditions inhomogènes. La modélisation de l’accélération de sous-maille est effectuée à l’aide de l’approche LES-SSAM introduite par Sabel’nikov, Chtab et Gorokhovski[EPJB 80:177]. L’accélération est modélisée à l’aide de deux modèles stochastiques indépendants : un processus log-normal d’Ornstein-Uhlenbeck pour la norme d’accélération et un processus stochastique Ornstein-Uhlenbeck basé sur le calcul de Stratonovich pour les composantes du vecteur d’orientation de l’accélération. L’approche est utilisée pour la simulation de particules fluides et inertielles dans le cas d’une turbulence homogène isotrope et dans un cisaillement homogène. Les résultats montrent une amélioration des statistiques à petites échelles par rapport aux LES classiques. La modélisation de l’accélération des particules inertielles dans le cisaillement homogène est effectuée avec l’approche LES-STRIP introduite par Gorokhovski et Zamansky[PRF 3:034602] et est modélisée avec deux modèles stochastiques indépendants de manière similaire à l’accélération de sous-maille. Nos calculs montrent une amélioration de l’accélération et de la vitesse des particules lorsque le modèle STRIP est utilisé. Enfin dans une dernière partie, nous présentons une équation pour décrire la dynamique de particules ponctuelles de taille supérieure à l’échelle de Kolmogorov dans une turbulence homogène isotrope calculée par DNS. Les résultats sont comparés avec l’expérience et montrent que cette description reproduit bien les propriétés dynamiques des particules. / The main objective of this thesis is to study the acceleration of fluid and inertial particles moving in a turbulent flow under the influence of a homogeneous shear in order to develop LES stochastic models that predict subgrid acceleration of the flow and acceleration of inertial particles. Subgrid acceleration modelisation is done in the framework of the LES-SSAM approach which was introduced by Sabel’nikov, Chtab and Gorokhovski[EPJB 80:177]. Acceleration is predicted with two independant stochastic models : a log-normal Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process for the norm of acceleration and an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process expressed in the sense of Stratonovich calculus for the components of the acceleration orientation vector. The approach is used to simulate fluid and inertial particles moving in a homogeneous isotropic turbulence and in a homogeneous sheared turbulence. Our results show that small scales statistics of particles are better predicted in comparison with classical LES approach. Modelling of inertial particles acceleration is done in the framework of the LES-STRIP which was introduced by Gorokhovski and Zamansky[PRF 3:034602] with two independant stochastic models in a similar way to the subgrid fluid acceleration. Computations of inertial particles in the homogeneous shear flow present good predicitons of the particles acceleration and velocity when STRIP model is used. In the last chapter, we present an equation to describe the dynamic of point-like particles which size is larger than the Kolmogorov scale moving in a homogeneous isotropic turbulence computed by direct numerical simulation. Results are compared with experiments and indicate that this description reproduces well the properties of the particles dynamic.