9/28/2025
Written by
MechSE Professors Leonardo P. Chamorro and Martin Ostoja-Starzewski, together with team members Jeffrey Cheng (now an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina), Yaswanth Sai Jetti (now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge), and Yuechao Wang, a graduate researcher in Chamorro’s lab, have led a breakthrough effort to address a long-standing mystery in turbulence research: the origin of the “k -1 spectral scaling.”
Their findings have been published in two papers in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and Scientific Reports.
This work highlights MechSE’s strong tradition of engaging students and early-career researchers in advancing fundamental scientific understanding and fostering their paths toward academic careers.
Their recent paper in JFM introduces a novel approach that represents turbulence as a superposition of eddy clusters distributed across various scales. By statistically mixing these clusters, the team demonstrated that the k -1 spectral regime naturally emerges as an intermediate asymptotic phenomenon, without relying on Kolmogorov’s inertial-range assumptions or Townsend’s attached eddy model.
In complementary work, conducted in collaboration with Vincent Neary at Sandia National Laboratories, the team developed a generalized turbulence spectrum model that captures the long-range dependence and fractal characteristics of turbulence observed in riverine, tidal, and atmospheric boundary-layer flows, features overlooked by classical models such as the IEC Kaimal and von Kármán spectra. This model has been demonstrated to improve predictions of the most energetic turbulent motions that drive unsteady structural loading. When incorporated into inflow simulators such as TurbSim, the model helps de-risk turbine design and operation by providing more realistic input conditions.
“Our goal is to use this understanding not only to advance fundamental science but also to create actionable tools for engineering and environmental applications,” said Chamorro.