Extended proper orthogonal decomposition: a tool to analyse correlated events in turbulent flows

A tool to analyse correlated events in turbulent flows based on an extended proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is proposed in this paper. A general definition of extended POD modes is presented and their properties are demonstrated. If the initial POD analysis in a spatio-temporal domain S concerns, for example, velocity—the concept of extended modes can be applied to study the correlation of any physical quantity in any domain Ω with the projection of the velocity field on POD modes in S. The link with particular associations of POD and linear stochastic estimation (LSE) recently proposed is demonstrated at the end of the paper. The method is believed to provide a valuable tool to extend the well-documented POD analysis of eddy structures in turbulent flows, for example, in boundary layers or free shear flows. If extended modes are velocity modes, spatial and temporal interactions between eddy structures can be detected and studied. The rapid development of experimental diagnostic techniques now permit measurements of the concentration in the domain, the velocity of a dispersed phase in the domain or the static pressure at the boundary together with the fluid velocity field. Using this method we are then able to extract objectively the link between the representative groups of velocity modes and the correlated part of the concentration, particle motion or pressure signals.