Structural evolution of intermittency and anisotropy at different scales analyzed using three‐dimensional wavelet transforms

The three‐dimensional Mexican hat wavelet transform is used as a Fourier‐spectral space filter to study (1) the process by which the nonlinearities in the equations of motion create intermittent regions of concentrated vorticity and (2) the process by which isotropic turbulence becomes anisotropic by mean shear. In the first study, the three‐dimensional wavelet transform is applied to direct numerical simulations of the transition from Gaussian initial conditions to isotropic turbulence. During this transition, the initially noncoherent vorticity field is transformed by the Navier–Stokes nonlinearities into coherent regions of concentrated vorticity. Analysis of the wavelet‐transformed enstrophy field suggests (a) that small scales are always more intermittent than large scales, (b) that the level of intermittency at the small scales grows more rapidly than at the large scales, and most importantly (c) that the structural development of turbulence at different scales is correlated both with the evolution ...